But the school stayed strong. As one of the “prominent Mid-Hudson preparatory institutions,” the boys’ school drew students from surprising lengths. Students from Michigan, Illinois, Texas, Montreal and Ohio attended classes there.
During this period, Chodikee Lake became known statewide as a scenic getaway — especially for people in New York City.
In 1940, low enrollment finally caught up with the Riordon School — as did the beginning of World War II. It closed its doors for the last time that year. Raymond and his brother J. Allen Riordon had positioned the academy as an alternative to public schools in the area.
Bootlegging
Federal agents got a lucky break in January 1941, when they discovered an illegal alcohol bootlegging operation at a farm on Chodikee Lake Road. Prohibition was already over at this time, but the operation was not paying alcohol taxes.
The raid shut down a 1,000-gallon still and the feds hauled away 700 gallons of booze — along with other ingredients like mash and grains.
The operation was a larger part of a huge bootlegging operation — which used farms in rural New York to make alcohol — that supplied the Atlantic Seaboard and Canada with illicit booze. Vito “Brewster Bill” Giallo, the leader of the operation, was eventually sentenced in 1943, according to an Associated Press story from February of that year.
In nine years, Giallo’s operation defrauded the government of $3.5 million in taxes — about $55.6 million in today’s dollars — and distributed illegal booze as far as Texas and Arizona.
A number of higher-ups got huge fines and jail time, but some Ulster County locals lower on the totem pole were found culpable as well. Frank Orlando of Highland, and Herbert Litts of Highland, Frank Verdirame of Esopus and Ciro Sinagra of New Paltz, were all fined in connection to the scheme.
Litts owned the farm the bootleggers used in Highland.
Nuclear option
During the mid-1970s, the idea that a nuclear power plant would be built somewhere on Black Creek troubled a lot of people in Highland. It caused significant community outrage into 1976. The potential plant didn’t stop being an issue until state legislators in Albany used their power to protect Black Creek.
Eventually, the Department of Environmental declared it a protected trout stream, which shut down the project at that location.
Levi Calhoun
One of Lloyd’s most well-remembered characters, Levi Calhoun, made his stomping grounds out by Chodikee Lake. Remembered for his eccentric ways, Calhoun lived off the land and knew herbal medicine and edible plants. He trapped raccoons, rabbits, foxes and muskrats. He hunted for eels in the Black Creek. He lived in a house sided with flattened one-gallon tomato cans.
Most people of a certain age in Highland have stories about their encounters with Calhoun. He’d pop out of the forest to offer jewel weed as a remedy to someone with poison ivy. He’d be seen pulling a heavy cart and pretending to be a horse. They remember his kindness, his piercing blue eyes and his virtually toothless smile.
Born on Jan. 20, 1890 (or 1889), Calhoun had 17 other siblings. He fought in World War I, but left the service after an honorable discharge. He helped build the old grape juice factory and the town’s first reservoir on top of Illinois Mountain.
Calhoun died in 1976 after being hit by a car while riding his bike on Kisor Road. But he left such an impression with locals that the Lloyd Historical Society has held exhibits in his honor and they even raised money in 2006 to get him a proper headstone.
Before he died, he’d carved his own simple stone that read only “Levi.”
The modern day
Today Chodikee Lake is still a haven for kayakers and fishermen. Driving to Camp Stuts Road to find the DEC boat launch is like a trip through the jungle. Thick trees are wrapped roots-to-branches in ivy. The shoreline is forest of cattails populated by dragonflies and buzzing insects.
Chodikee again harbors another religious community. The orthodox Jews have used the old site of Camp Stuts. It is now known as Camp Karlin Stolin.
The old Riordon School eventually became a juvenile detention center. In 1981, the Division for Youth facility opened up to help rehabilitate juveniles convicted of serious crimes. When first announced, residents of the Chodikee Lake area didn’t much like the idea of young offenders so close to their home.
Escapes have occurred, but neighbors are quickly notified.
No longer the DFY, the juvenile prison is now called the Highland Residential Center. The population skews toward people coming from New York City.
In 2009, the management of the Highland Residential Center came under fire. “A state task force concluded last year that the entire system — currently holding more than 800 youths — was fundamentally broken,” the New York Times wrote in 2010.
Legal Aid Society sued the state, claiming that guards denied kids medical treatment and subjected them to violent restraint. The U.S. Department of Justice also threatened to take over the state juvenile centers back then.
The state’s treatment of juvenile offenders is still a topic of criticism to this day.
