Palenville, New York
32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1892 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Catskill town. It lies in ZIP code area 12463. It lies near Kaaterskill Clove. The Survey maps it on the Kaaterskill Clove quadrangle. 1,002 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 568 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1892 to 1997The same ground, surveyed 105 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Compare 1892 against another survey:
On record in Palenville
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
Rowena Memorial Schoollisted 2002
Population over time
2 figuresPalenville fell from 1,037 to 1,002 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,037 | |
| 2020 | 1,002 | -35 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
13 surveys from 32 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1892 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1893 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:62500
- 1894 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:62500
- 1899 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1903 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:62500, 10 printings
- 1946 USGS Kaaterskill quadrangle1:24000, 6 printings
- 1946 USGS Kaaterskill Clove quadrangle1:24000
- 1948 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
- 1950 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
- 1963 USGS Binghamton quadrangle1:250000
- 1986 USGS Pepacton Reservoir quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1997 USGS Kaaterskill Clove quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
239 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 239 fires within 5 miles of Palenville between 1992 and 2020, burning about 264 acres in total. 16 started naturally. 27 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 91 |
| Debris and open burning | 61 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 27 |
| Natural | 16 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 16 |
| Smoking | 11 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 7 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 4 |
| Other causes | 3 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 8 September 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 7 September 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | NA |
| 4 September 2002 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 29 September 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | N/A |
| 24 September 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.2 acres | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 21 September 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | N/A |
| 20 September 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
10 of 18 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 18 workings within 5 miles of Palenville: 9 producers, 9 past producers. 9 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Limestone, General, Clay, Flagstone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batchellerville Garnet Pit | Feldspar | Past Producer | ||
| Cementon - Alsen Limestone Quarries | Limestone, General | Producer | Limestone | |
| Quarryville Blue Sandstone Quarry | Flagstone | Past Producer | ||
| Saxton Blue Sandstone Quarry | Flagstone | Past Producer | ||
| Smith's Landing Clay Pit | Clay | Producer | ||
| Smith's Landing Clay Pit | Clay | Past Producer | ||
| West Camp Limestone Quarry | Limestone, General | Producer | Limestone | |
| 3/4 Mile N.N.E. Saxton Blue Sandstone Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | Sedimentary | |
| Cementon-Alsen Limestone Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer | ||
| Lawrenceville Sandstone Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | Sedimentary |
Storms near this place
7 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Palenville in 7 storm reports between 1996 and 2022: 2 lightning, 2 flood, 1 tornado, 1 flash flood. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2016 | Lightning | Palenville | 2 hurt | Two campers were injured by a lightning strike near North-South Lake in Greene County. The two campers, a man and a woman, were located in a grove of hemlock trees off a trail when lightning struck a tree 5 to 10 feet from their tent. The woman lost consciousness and the man may have as well. The woman received superficial burns, but the man received more severe burns and required hospitalization. |
| December 2020 | Flood | Palenville | $75,000 | A creek washed over a bridge on Pennsylvania Avenue in Catskill, depositing debris and damaging the roadway. |
| July 2003 | Tornado (F1) | Palenville | $25,000 | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Lightning | Palenville | $10,000 | no account filed |
| April 2022 | Flood | Palenville | - | A section of Pennsylvania Avenue in Palenville was closed due to flooding. |
| June 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palenville | - | Tree limbs were reported down on Bogart Road in Palenville due to strong thunderstorm winds. |
| December 2010 | Flash Flood | Palenville | - | Pennsylvania Avenue in Palenville was reported closed due to flash flooding. |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ledgewood Park | 1.9 miles | 32 | |
| High Falls | 2.9 miles | 27 | |
| Kiskatom | 3.6 miles | 27 | |
| Twilight Park | 3.7 miles | 32 | |
| Lawrenceville | 4.2 miles | 27 | |
| Haines Falls | 4.3 miles | 32 | |
| Platte Clove | 4.6 miles | 32 | |
| Alsen | 5.5 miles | 27 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Palenville | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q3461940 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 959772. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.












