Historic Katonah Self-Guided Tours

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Experience the rich history of our village with our new self-guided audio tour on the TravelStorys mobile app! Narrated by Katonah residents John Bedford Lloyd and Anne Twomey Lloyd, this self-guided tour takes you through landmarks in Katonah’s residential National Register Historic District and the historic commercial core. The audio content, triggered by your phone’s GPS, plays automatically as you approach each story site. As you move through downtown Katonah and visit historic buildings, you’ll discover the remarkable townwide move more than a century ago and hear intriguing stories of the people who shaped the vibrant community you see today.

About this 30-minute audio tour

As you move along the beautifully tree-lined streets of downtown Katonah, you’ll discover the one quality that makes it unique: This entire town relocated en masse from its previous location, about half a mile up the road, in the 1890s. On this tour, you’ll learn:

Why the hamlet had to move (hint: It involved the New Croton Dam project.)
How the townspeople accomplished the challenging engineering feat of moving their homes intact without modern-day machinery and equipment
How New Katonah was carefully planned to create the most desirable and livable town the residents could imagine
How the community pulled together to survive the move and other momentous periods history, such as the Great Depression
The impact this small community had on major national events, such as the fight for women’s right to vote

Audio Tour Highlights

Original homes that were moved from old Katonah in the 1890s
Multigenerational family-owned businesses that tell the story of Katonah’s roots
Katonah Village Library, a thriving focal point of the community
Historic churches of many different denominations
Hubs of community awareness and neighborly support, such as the Community Center of Northern Westchester
Historic buildings reflecting the changing times, such as the Old Firehouse Building
And much more!

Special thanks to Deirdre Courtney-Batson, local historian, for her years of research that serve as a backdrop for this tour. Much credit is also due to Frances Duncombe and other members of the KVIS historical committee, who published the comprehensive book Katonah: The History of a New York Village and Its People in 1961. Thank you, as well, to the Katonah Historical Museum for sharing photos for this tour.

Finally, we are most appreciative of the generous volunteerism of our tour narrators, longtime Katonah residents John Bedford Lloyd and Anne Twomey Lloyd as well Robert Kessler, Kessler Media, and sound engineer Sam Popkin.

Self-Guided Architectural Tour (non-audio)

If you’re an architecture buff, check out this link to the Katonah Village Improvement Society’s self-guided tour through the residential National Register Historic District of Katonah and the hamlet’s historic commercial core. If you’d prefer, printed versions of the brochure are available at the Katonah Village Library.

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