A history of Poughkeepsie,
since 1686
Postcards, papers and photographs of Poughkeepsie from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗English colonist Robert Sanders and Dutch colonist Myndert Harmense Van Den Bogaerdt acquired the land on which Poughkeepsie now sits from a local Native American tribe in 1686, and the first settlers were the families of Barent Baltus Van Kleeck and Hendrick Jans van Oosterom. The settlement grew quickly, and the Reformed Church of Poughkeepsie was established by 1720.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Poughkeepsie’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewAlfred Billings Street, c. 1850: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Poughkeepsie
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Poughkeepsie, decade by decade
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Alfred Billings Street (c. 1850) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.