Skip to main content

To Plan A Trip

March 2023
1min read


The Chautauqua season runs nine weeks, from late June through August, attracting 180,000 visitors and residents. For information on packages, programs, and accommodations, contact the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY 14711 (1-800-836-ARTS). The Division of Tourism for New York State provides maps and brochures on the Chautauqua-Allegheny region.

Of the dozens of hotels and boardinghouses, the 1881 Athenaeum is the acknowledged star. A huge wooden structure with a cupola and a rambling porch filled with rocking chairs, it demands a visit even if you stay elsewhere. I was perfectly comfortable at its smaller, plainer neighbor on the lakefront, the William Baker Hotel.

Chautauqua’s founders were concerned that it “may become merely a successful resort.” It remained faithful to its mandate, but it does offer tennis, golf, boating, and swimming. Perhaps the best entertainment is simply strolling the grounds, which somehow seem denser and richer than the three-mile circumference would suggest. Be sure to look for the lovely little Chapel of the Good Shepherd, tucked away in a glade, and visit the busy Arts and Crafts Quadrangle, which commands a hill at the northern end. Then spend some time at Palestine Park, down at the lakefront, where the whole endeavor began, and you’ll have described a triangle that encloses most of the other sights. Palestine Park holds a scale model of the Holy Land, complete with ditches that represent the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, while the lake fills in as the Mediterranean. It was fashioned in 1874 to help the first Sunday-school teachers learn their Bible, and an old-timer fondly characterized it as “goofy.”

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "July/August 1991"

Authored by: The Editors

Tips for unearthing the history of your home

Authored by: The Editors

A Self-Portrait

Authored by: The Editors

A Journey Uptown Over Time

Authored by: The Editors

Ratifying the Fourteenth

Authored by: The Editors

Words Under Water

Authored by: The Editors

Movie Makers

Authored by: The Editors

Uncrowding the Sky

Authored by: The Editors

The Witch of Wall Street

Authored by: The Editors

The $10,000 Miss

Authored by: The Editors

Texas Tower

Featured Articles

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.