Shokan, NY

Shokan is a hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Olive, Ulster County, within the Catskill Park. The 2020 Census counted 1,075 residents. Its present location was shaped by the construction of Ashokan Reservoir: the earlier settlement was relocated in the early twentieth century, and the reservoir now occupies 8,315 acres as part of New York City’s Catskill water system. In Shokan, the water-supply history sits directly on the town map.

Town of Olive records preserve photographs of the reservoir’s construction, from mule teams and rail lines to the 1913 opening-day celebration. The Olive and Hurley Old School Baptist Church, listed on the National Register in 1998, carries an earlier layer of settlement, and students attend Onteora Central School District. The Catskill Park setting adds mountain roads and forest to a community whose history includes a physical move for a metropolitan water project. The reservoir still shapes the surrounding geography, and Shokan’s local story is written in both engineering and small-town institutions.