 The hamlet of Haines Falls was always a mountain resort town, unlike Hunter and Palenville which had tanneries.Haines Falls is at the head of Kaaterskill Clove and is the former site of the Catskill Mountain House, Kaaterskill Hotel, and Laurel House which sat atop the famous Kaaterskill Falls.In 1825, Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painters, did his first Catskill mountain paintings in Haines Falls