New York State Central Leatherstocking Region

Melissa Washburn

Valparaiso, IN, US

Comment

I grew up in New York. The *other* New York - the vast expanse of farmland and wilderness that comprises almost everything outside New York City. The town I grew up in, in Fulton County (just northeast of the counties on the map), was the center of the leather and glove making industry during World War II and into the 1950s and '60s. I always assumed that the Leatherstocking Region took its name from the leather trade. However, instead it comes from James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, a series of books that includes The Last of the Mohicans.