The Hudson River Driving Park

Historical photo of Hudson River Driving Park

By Shannon Butler

When one drives down Hooker Avenue between Whittier Boulevard and Cedar Avenue, you pass by buildings that were mostly built well after the turn of the 20th century. What many people don’t know is that there was once a massive park on this land that saw all of the various forms of transportation racing and was an early home for the Dutchess County Fair. Nothing remains of that era, and today the land is made up of single family homes, but if one digs deep, you can find some very interesting events and some odd connections.

As early as 1872, plans were being discussed for a possible driving park in Poughkeepsie. You might be thinking, “But there were no cars to drive in 1872,” and that's correct. The popular form of driving at the time was trotting horses with carriages. The Hudson River Driving Park Association chose land on the south side of what was then Southeast Avenue for the creation of a mile long race track with a grandstand and exhibit hall. Some of the members of this association were well known Poughkeepsians, including Mayor Harvey Eastman, J.O. Whitehouse, and James Collingwood. Completed in 1874 with a grand opening attended by Governor John A. Dix, it was determined that this was a better location for the county wide fair, which had been located in Washington Hollow.

Trotting was the big sport of interest with people coming in to place bets on the big name horses that raced there. The Hudson River Railroad Company even offered reduced rates for tickets to Poughkeepsie on major race days. Some managed to win big while others lost big. One man, in August of 1875, lost $900 (approximately $26,000 today!) in one race. During that same day, the Eastman Business College played on while local oddity “Boots” Van Steenburgh gave a speech, which he followed up by singing some opera before he was escorted away by police. By the late 1880s, a new type of racing was bringing in the crowds: the bicycle race. The prices in these races included everything from medals to fishing rods, a Colt revolver, and new cycling shoes.

The fair that took place in 1910 was perhaps the most exciting event that the grounds had hosted. Visitors got the chance to see everything from a speech made by former President Theodore Roosevelt to a Curtis biplane flying overhead, and record-breaking speeds from a Poughkeepsie-made Fiat driven by Ralph De Palma. Over 30,000 people attended the fair on that day alone. While the majority of the events that occurred at the driving park were met with positive feelings from the community, there was one event in 1924 that did raise some concern.

On June 27, a crowd of about 1,800 people gathered at the grounds for a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. This was the first time that the general public had become aware of the presence of the organization here in Dutchess County. The meeting was by invitation only, and the speaker was a southern minister by the name of Oscar Haywood. The reporter for the Poughkeepsie Eagle News was allowed to enter the meeting, granted that he did not “make public the names of persons present whom he might recognize.” He also added that the scene didn’t look like a traditional Klan rally, as, “None of those present wore hoods nor robes.” A curious crowd gathered at the gate, however, “Several persons were denied admittance, and others who had scaled the driving park fence were escorted out.” This appears to have served as the last major event to occur on the grounds of the Hudson River Driving Park.

In 1915, Jacob Ruppert Jr. inherited the property from his father, the wealthy New York City brewer. The younger Ruppert was also a successful brewer and businessman, but he had no interest in his father’s race track. His interest was baseball and he purchased the New York Yankees the same year his father died. By 1922, he had made it clear that he wanted to sell the grounds. He sold the property in 1924 for $200,000, with the exception of a smaller parcel on the southern end, which was given to the city as a park, today known as Spratt Park. The rest of the land was subdivided and construction of the modern day community began shortly thereafter.