Things to Do in Cooperstown, New York

This is why most people come. The museum has three floors of exhibits, the Plaque Gallery, and a collection of tens of thousands of artifacts, and it has logged more than 17 million visits since 1939. It sits right on Main Street.

★ Good to know It’s open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, with longer hours in summer; active and career-retired military and kids 6 and under get in free.

Edward Severin Clark’s 1931 stone manor on Otsego Lake now holds the Thaw Collection of American Indian Art and a strong American folk art collection. It’s just north of the village on State Highway 80.

★ Good to know It’s closed Mondays; a two-way ticket covers the museum and Fenimore Farm across the road.

Formerly The Farmers’ Museum, this working 19th-century farm and village opened in 1944 on land that once belonged to James Fenimore Cooper. The farm buildings date to 1918. Fall brings a harvest festival, a blacksmith weekend, a scarecrow village and a tractor festival.

★ Good to know It’s closed Mondays, and a holiday light show runs on late-fall and December evenings; check the events page for this year’s dates.

Founded in 1975, this summer opera company performs in the Alice Busch Opera Theater, 8 miles north of the village on Otsego Lake. Each season brings four new productions, three operas and one American musical, with a full orchestra and no amplification.

★ Good to know The season runs from mid-July to late August; book early for weekend performances.

This park at the north end of Otsego Lake has a swimming beach, a campground, a covered bridge and the Beaver Pond nature trail. Hyde Hall, a neoclassical mansion built between 1817 and 1834 by George Clarke’s family, is inside the park and is a National Historic Landmark.

★ Good to know The park is open dawn to dusk year-round, but the beach and campground are seasonal, and there’s a vehicle fee in summer.

Two blocks from the Hall of Fame, this ballpark has been used for baseball since 1920 on what was Elihu Phinney’s farm. The WPA built its steel and concrete grandstand in 1939. Amateur and youth games fill the summer schedule.

★ Good to know The Hall of Fame Classic, a game with retired major leaguers, is usually played here around Memorial Day weekend.

This Belgian-style brewery sits on farmland south of the village on County Highway 33. It has a tap house restaurant and hosts outdoor concerts in summer.

★ Good to know Tours run on weekends, so check the brewery’s site before you plan around one.

About three miles from Cooperstown, this historic water-powered cider mill presses apples on site. There’s a tasting room over the millpond, a restaurant, and kid-sized stops like a rubber-duck race and Tractorland.

★ Good to know Fall is the busiest season here; the online store runs year-round, but check the mill’s season before you drive out in winter.