The Village of Penn Yan was awarded in 2018 one of the 10 million dollar Downtown Revitalization Initiative Grants.   The next few years the Village will be going through some exciting changes within our downtown area, Parks and Outlet Trail.   The Village is located at the North end of Keuka Lake with two beaches located at the end.    You can enjoy our crisp clear lake all year round with swimming, boating, ice fishing and skating or take a wine tour and relax in this quiet community.    We have three Hotels to choose from along with many B&B’s in the area.    
 
Penn Yan started off as two separate settlements, in 1823, The Village of Penn Yan incorporated  in 1833.

The big event that shaped the village was the opening in 1833 of the Crooked Lake Canal. Main Street crossed it north of the mills;  the unsold property in Penn Yan was acquired by a syndicate of local businessmen who proceeded to develop a commercial and industrial enterprise. It was focused on the sudden opening of markets east toward Albany and New York, and west to Buffalo and the plains beyond via access to Seneca Lake and the epochal Erie Canal. 

For the remainder of the 19th century Penn Yan was relatively much larger and more open to the great movements of the day than it would remain. Abolition, temperance, women’s rights rolled through like the cars of a booming train; nationally-known speakers convened audiences in the several large speaking-halls and opera houses. Even after the Canal and railroads died, Penn Yan served warehouses, ice houses, brokerages and more; besides fresh fruit and huge bales of wool, products like baskets, paper, bulk grocery bins, wheels and spokes, wheat and malted grain poured out in a golden stream.

Now standing on the exciting edge of a broadened view, with rediscovery of the things that were always here, Penn Yan is grounded in its past and looking to the future.