Joppenbergh Mountain is a nearly 500-foot (150 m) mountain in Rosendale Village, in Ulster County, New York. The mountain is composed of a carbonate bedrock overlain by glacially deposited material. It was named after Rosendale's founder, Jacob Rutsen, and mined throughout the late 19th century for dolostone that was used in the manufacture of natural cement. Extensive mining caused a large cave-in on December 19, 1899, that destroyed equipment and collapsed shafts within Joppenbergh. During the late 1930s, Joppenbergh became the site of several ski jumping competitions, which continued until the early 1940s. Skiing began again in the 1960s, when a new slope was built on the mountain, and the revived competitions continued until 1971. In March 2011, the Open Space Institute offered to purchase Joppenbergh and sell it to the town. The Rosendale town board initially agreed to the deal the following month, with payment planned to come from a surplus fund. That June, however, the board found that the surplus fund had already been exhausted and could not cover the entire cost of the purchase. Ultimately, the OSI completed its purchase of Joppenbergh in October 2011, without town money. (Full article...)

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