The Premier Painting Company in Blauvelt, NY

The name “Blauvelt”, of Dutch origin, is that of a prominent family that settled in the area in the 17th century. The etymology of the name probably comes from the coat of arms adopted by the first Blauvelt, Pieter Blauwveld, a prominent trader in the Netherlands. Literally, it means “blue-field”, or “blue pasture fields”, likely a reference to the blue and yellow shields hung on Blauwveld’s ships (a common 14th century Dutch method of identifying the owner). The first Blauvelt in America was a peasant farmer who cultivated tobacco on the estate of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the first patroon of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck near Albany, New York, in 1638.

In 1909, New York State purchased property in Blauvelt to create Camp Bluefields, a large rifle range used to train members of the New York National Guard prior to World War I. The property was later used by the YWCA, ROTC, Columbia University and the U.S. Army for various purposes before being abandoned following World War II. The land is today the site of Blauvelt State Park.

In 1972, Robert Salvia and Professor Dr. Paul Olson of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a research unit of Columbia University located on a 157-acre (0.64 km²) campus in Palisades, New York, discovered several 200-million-year-old dinosaur tracks that were identified as being from the coelophysis. Some of these tracks were sent to the New York State Museum in Albany, New York for identification and preservation. The fossils date from the Triassic period and are claimed to be the only dinosaur tracks ever discovered in the state of New York.