HVNY: History

The Peg Leg Bates Country Club broke barriers in the Catskills

Like many young kids, Clayton Bates began dancing when he was five years old. But when he was 12, he was working in a cotton seed gin mill when his leg got caught and mangled in a conveyor belt. His leg had to be amputated, and they did so on his kitchen table, according to records with the Library of Congress. When he was 15, his uncle carved him a wooden peg leg and he left home to continue dancing.

"It somehow grew in my mind that I wanted to be as good a dancer as any two-legged dancer," Bates recalled. "It hurt me that the boys pitied me. I was pretty popular before, and I still wanted to be popular. I told them not to feel sorry for me."

That tenacity led him to vaudeville stages in Paris, then Broadway, the Ed Sullivan Show, and eventually, right here in the Hudson Valley.

In 1951 Bates invested his earnings with his wife, Alice, and purchased a 65-acre turkey farm in New York's Catskill Mountains and converted it into a resort. The Peg Leg Bates Country Club in Kerhonkson flourished as the largest black-owned-and-operated resort in the country, catering to black clientele, and featuring hundreds of jazz musicians and tap dancers. "During the prejudice years, country clubs were not integrated," said Bates, "and I started thinking how blacks might like to have a country resort just like any other race of people."

''While you're here at the Peg Leg Bates Country Club, you are secure, you are protected,'' Mr. Bates said at the time. ''You will not be robbed; you will not be mugged.'' Posted signs warned: ''We have karate experts on the premises.''

There was a spacious swimming pool, a roller disco rink, an all-you-can-eat buffet and scenic bike paths, which Bates used a golf cart to traverse. When guests were done with their breakfast, they could bring their placemats up front and Bates would sign them (if the placemats got dirty during service, he would fetch clean ones to sign for the guests).

After selling the property in 1989, two years after the death of his wife, Bates continued to perform and teach, mostly for local senior citizens and children, and helped start the senior citizens center in Ellenville.

A stretch of Route 209, from Kingston to Port Jervis, was renamed the Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates Memorial Highway in the fall of 2000, two years after his death.

"Life means, do the best you can with what you've got, with all your mind and heart. You can do anything in this world if you want to do it bad enough," he often said.

UPDATE: Due to the inclement weather, the discussion planned for Wednesday evening will now be held on Sunday, March 5, 2023 from 1 pm to 3 pm at Arts Mid-Hudson, 696 Dutchess Turnpike Suite F. The Folk Arts Program at Arts Mid-Hudson, in partnership with the Race Unity Circle, will host: Peg Leg Bates: The Performance Years, a discussion about Black entrepreneurship pre and post the Civil Rights act of 1964 led by Poughkeepsie native, and hip hop dancer, Nick Jackson. The event takes place in-person at Arts Mid-Hudson, 696 Dutchess Turnpike, Suite F, Poughkeepsie. The event is free but registration is required. Register here.

In addition, Peg Leg Bates: The Performance Years, an exhibition with filled with posters, photos and text, will be on display through March 9 at Arts Mid-Hudson. More info.