Experience the best of Cooperstown

Cooperstown sits at the southern end of Otsego Lake in the hills of central New York. It was founded by William Cooper, whose son James Fenimore Cooper grew up here and drew on the lake, which he called Glimmerglass, in his Leatherstocking tales. Main Street is a short, handsome stretch of brick shops, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, opened in 1939, draws baseball fans from across the continent.

The Fenimore Art Museum, on the lake shore, holds American folk art and Native American art, and the Farmers' Museum, a living-history village of nineteenth-century farm life, shows the famous Cardiff Giant hoax. The Glimmerglass Festival stages opera each summer, boats run on Otsego Lake, and Doubleday Field, a small ballpark of 1920, stands a block from the Hall. The Catskills lie to the south.

The region grew hops in the nineteenth century, and craft breweries and cideries have returned to the valleys around the lake, alongside farm-to-table restaurants. The village is busiest in summer, the hills turn red and gold in autumn, and winters are snowy and quiet.