Tuxedo Park is a village in New York, about 50 miles north of New York City in Orange County from which the formal attire of the same name originates. The population was 731 at the 2000 census.The name is derived from a Native American word of the Lenape language, tucsedo, which means either ‘place of the bear’ or ‘clear flowing water.’ Tuxedo Park is a village within the southern part of the Town of Tuxedo (pop. 3,334).
What is now the village and the areas immediately surrounding it, were developed as a resort for Blue Blood society in 1885 by American tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard IV on property acquired by his grandfather, Pierre Lorillard II in 1790. Peter Lorillard organized the Tuxedo Club and the Tuxedo Park Association, as hunting and fishing preserve, and surrounded the property with a high game fence.
The original club house was built in 1886 and designed by American architect Bruce Price. The Shingle style houses Price built at Tuxedo influenced several young architects including Frank Lloyd Wright.
Tuxedo Park enjoyed many prosperous years from 1885 until the 1920s. The ‘Blue Book of Etiquette’ was written by Emily Post, who was the daughter of Bruce Price. She wrote the book based on what she observed at the Tuxedo Club. Many other notables came from that era in Tuxedo to include: JP Morgan, scientist Alfred Loomis, Waldorf Astor, Herbert C. Pell, and Augustus Juilliard, among others.
The area known as Tuxedo Park separated from the Town of Tuxedo and became incorporated in 1952, adopting the village form of government. Today it comprises 2,050 acres (8.3 km²), of which 355 acres (1.4 km²) includes three lakes, and about 340 housing units in 320 structures.
The evening dress for men now popularly known as a tuxedo (sometimes formally termed black tie attire), takes its name from Tuxedo Park, where it was said to have been worn for the first time in the United States, by Peter Lorillard IV’s son Griswald at the annual Autumn Ball of the Tuxedo Club founded by Pierre Lorillard IV, and thereafter became popular for formal dress in America.
It became known as the tuxedo when a fellow asked another at the Autumn Ball, ‘Why does that man’s jacket not have coattails on it?’ The other answered, ‘He is from Tuxedo.’ The first gentleman misinterpreted and told all of his friends that he saw a man wearing a jacket without coattails called a tuxedo, not from Tuxedo. This all took place at The Autumn ball, which still exists today.
The Daily Omnivore 
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