Hudson Falls (formerly Sandy Hill) is a village located in Washington County, New York, United States. The village is in the southwest of the town of Kingsbury, on U.S. Route 4. Hudson Falls is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the village had a population of 7,281.It was the county seat of Washington County until 1994, when the county seat was moved to Fort Edward.
In 1764, Albert Baker built Kingsbury's first sawmill near what is known today as Baker's Falls.As early as 1792, the area of Kingsbury near Baker's Falls was referred to as Sandy Hill. In 1810, the hamlet incorporated as a village, keeping the name Sandy Hill. Its boundaries expanded to their current limits in the 1840s.
Around 1824, the Glens Falls Feeder Canal was constructed to bring water from the Hudson River to the Champlain Canal. With the opening of the Feeder Canal, Sandy Hill became a prosperous manufacturing center, producing lumber, paper, pianos, wagons, pulleys, and other products. The Glens Falls Feeder Canal is no longer used commercial traffic, but the route of Canal is a fourteen mile long park, with a walking & bike trail on the old tow path.
Stone quarried in Hudson Falls was used to construct the Bennington Battle Monument (1889) and the Brooklyn Bridge. The former site of the quarry has been redeveloped for use by the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services.
In 1851, Francis Wolle invented the first bag-making machine, and formed a company that would later become the Union Bag and Paper Company. In 1892 the company relocated from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Hudson Falls, where it had a paper mill. In 1906, Union Paper and Bag Co. built the Fenimore Bridge (Sandy Hill Bridge), spanning the Hudson River between Hudson Falls built in Washington County and town of Moreau in Saratoga County, since the company had plants in both locations. For a brief period of time, the closed-spandrel arch bridge was the longest multiple span, reinforced-concrete arch bridge in the world.The bridge is now closed, but local officials hope to turn it into a pedestrian walkway.
The First Presbyterian Church of Hudson Falls was organized in 1803. Services were held in the town courthouse until a new church building was dedicated in 1827 at the site of the Old Burying Ground. This building was demolished around 1893, to make way for a larger structure, dedicated in 1895.
Zion Episcopal was founded in 1817 as the Episcopal-Methodist Church. Services were held in a parishioner's home until a new building was completed in 1849 and consecrated as Zion Episcopal Church. In 1968, lightning caused a fire that gutted the interior, which was then rebuilt.
The first Catholic church between Albany and Canada was constructed in the 1830s om Wall Street. Originally called Christ Church, it was later renamed St. Mary's. That church later burnt down, and a new one was erected on Park Place.
St. Paul's Church was founded in the 1870s to serve French Canadian in Sandy Hill. They purchased the small wooden old First Baptist Church at the top of River Street, after that congregation built a second, larger church next to the courthouse. St. Paul's erected a new, larger, brick building in the 1890s. The church was struck by lightning in 1974 and burned down.The parish subsequently merged with St. Mary's.
In 1910, the village's name was changed to Hudson Falls. The Glens Falls Feeder Canal, Hudson Falls Historic District, and United States Post Office are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In the first week of September around Friday-Saturday, there is an annual carnival to commemorate the 175th Anniversary of the founding of the Village. The "Sandy Hill Days" event is hosted at the Hudson Falls Kindergarten Center near the Knights Of Columbus (KofC), where there is also a flea market. it is also held in Juckett Park, the green in the center of the Village where route 4 meets with River Street.
Here is a local Business that supports the community
Google Map- https://goo.gl/maps/vUeLNEyYHNS5pog56
845 US-9, Queensbury, NY 12804
Be sure to check out this attraction too!