John Duda Postcard Collection

John Duda is a regional historian located in Delaware County specializing in postcards with a personal focus on the Catskill Mountains region of New York State. Mr. Duda assembled a subject binder of postcards showing the Ashokan Reservoir comprising a wide selection of unusual and rare real photo and chromo-lithographic postcard. These artifacts show everything from reservoir infrastructure to construction scenes and images of the laborers who built the reservoir. He provided the Ulster County Archives access to this subject binder of Ashokan postcards in 2023 with the understanding that the scans would be made available to the public and scholars as a visual compliment to other materials concerning the reservoir currently in the care of the Ulster County Clerk’s Office.

The Ashokan Reservoir was constructed between 1907 and 1915 as the first of the reservoirs under the management of the New York City Board of Water Supply. Formed primarily by a dam placed on the Esopus Creek at Bishop’s Falls, the Ashokan is the deepest and oldest of the Reservoirs in the New York City water supply system.