Pulaski, New York

The small village of Pulaski, in Oswego County, sits where the Salmon River runs toward Lake Ontario. Early settlers knew it simply as Fishville, which tells you most of what you need to know.

The first permanent settler arrived at the river's mouth in eighteen oh one. By eighteen oh six, a man named Benjamin Winch had opened a tavern at the village site. The settlement became official on April twenty-sixth, eighteen thirty-two, renamed Pulaski in honor of Casimir Pulaski, the Polish cavalry general who fought and died for American independence in the Revolutionary War.

The Salmon River still defines the town. Anglers come from across the country to fish for Chinook salmon and steelhead trout on a seventeen-mile stretch from Lighthouse Hill Reservoir to Lake Ontario. The river draws nearly forty-three million dollars in visitor spending each year, a remarkable economic engine for a village of roughly two thousand people. The old part of the village was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty-three.