Cuckoo for Coe Hill
Coe Hill Open Space, Middlefield
January 2026
This is one of those “Really, dude? You really needed to find this place, walk it, photograph it, and write about it?” places. To which I answer,
“Yes? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.”
So imagine my surprise upon settling in to quickly write this page and finding a very detailed DEEP report on Coe Hill. And a newspaper article from 2002 describing the Middlefield referendum on whether or not the town should purchase these 38 acres on a hill.
Spoiler alert: Middlefield bought the land – which wasn’t so easy in 2002 during some financial crises. Jeannine M. Steucek sold her land to the town for its fair market value of $203,000.
The property contains the peak of Coe Hill at an elevation of 530 feet, making it the third-highest point in Middlefield. I note this because the two higher points – Mount Higby and Beseck Mountain – are both much more impressive than Coe Hill, but really aren’t that much taller.
There’s a little pull-out for walkers and an incongruously impressive trail sign. Like, this hike isn’t awesome, but that giant sign sure is. The trail begins as a farm road between two residences that heads up the hill to an overgrown farm field full of invasive shrubs.
The full Coe Hill property includes the woods that surround the fields and in fact extend north all the way to Route 66.
The “Coe Hill” name refers to early ownership by an Alva B. Coe in the 19th Century. The property served as a farm growing hay for horses and sheep until the 1920s. The Steuceks were the last family to own the land, starting in 1950. They planted apple and pear trees in the 1960s. The Town of Middlefield purchased the land from the Steucek family in 2002.
Hawk
There was always a plan to keep this place open for hiking and hunting. (A sign on the gate at the trailhead reminded me that bowhunting was allowed here.) I walked the shrubland fields in January 2026 and the paths were mowed quite well. I simply followed the path to the top of the hill and then around the loops that skirted the wooded areas.
I’m sure the town could clear a trail into the woods, but the DEEP recommends the opposite for this property:
Presently there are unmarked trails that traverse the dense vegetation of the fields from occasional mowing. It is possible that trails can be streamlined and reduced, but not established with any permanency until the extensive vegetation management has taken place on most of the involved acres. Trails do not have to be widespread and enter every area of the habitat. By reducing trails, or focusing on keeping trails closer to the edges of critical habitat work, the town will reduce disturbance to these habitats on the interior. It will also reduce the spread of invasives across as large of areas as in the past. Recreational trails are a vector for the more rapid spread of invasive plants.
Hm. I’d like some citations for that last sentence. The thing about Coe Hill is that no one’s coming here to do what I did. Sure, local residents walk their dogs up here, but no one is coming from afar to walk the muddy paths of Coe Hill. Well, except hunters.
The DEEP says that “hunting could be expanded to firearms (shotgun) to increase interest in hunting on the premises and therefore success rates” but Middlefield doesn’t seem too happy with the hunter stands that are set up here.
The same note is posted on a dilapidated stand off into the woods a bit more. But this one had at least two wildlife motion cameras set up.
I like to do stupid things for those cameras. Does anyone else do that?
picnic anyone?
That’s pretty much it I’m afraid. Someone brought a picnic table up here to the top of the hill, but it has seen better days.
I assume the vegetation here is prettier in the summer, but it’s still mostly garbage plants like multiflora rose, Asiatic bittersweet, winged euonymous, autumn olive, and tree-of-heaven is probably taking over too.
Sorry, don’t mean to end on a bummer note. It’s great that Middlefield bought and preserves this space and I’m glad I spent 20 minutes walking its paths. I’m cuckoo for Coe Coe Hill.
CTMQ’s Middlefield Town Trails
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