Local History

Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.

Throwback Thursday — Montauk’s Community Theater

Throwback Thursday — Montauk’s Community Theater

  Tired old farmers, spritely young wenches, fiddler and dance master, hombreros and sun bonnets, blue denim and gingham, square dance and quadrille, Charles Chaplin and Spanish senoritas mixed colorfully last Saturday night at the Montauk Theatre, after the benefit movies, to the delight of many spectators. That’s what the East Hampton Star reported in… Read more »

Thowback Thursday –– What Is an Archives?

Thowback Thursday –– What Is an Archives?

Ever wonder how you can learn more about the history of Montauk? Reading our weekly Throwback Thursday posts is a great starting point and if you want to dig deeper into a topic or have local history-related questions you can visit the Montauk Library’s archives. But what is an archives anyway?  “An archives is a… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — A Berry Merry Thanksgiving

Throwback Thursday — A Berry Merry Thanksgiving

“Cranberries are plentiful at Napeague this year and it is predicted that every dinner table will hold a large dish of tasty cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving,” the East Hampton Star reported brightly in September of 1917.  It was an announcement that could well have been made more than a century later, one of many updates… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — Until the Cows Came Home

Throwback Thursday — Until the Cows Came Home

East Hampton’s settlers fattened their cattle out in Montauk in warmer months, whooping it up on Cattle Day to celebrate the beginning of the season and observing Thanksgiving only after the animals had been driven back home. Town records speak of herding at Montauk as early as 1661, and there were cattle drives to, from,… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Montauk Is Green With Trees

Throwback Thursday – Montauk Is Green With Trees

Montauk’s forests, hills, valleys, cliffs, and shorelines have long inspired creative types flocking to the East End for open spaces and wild muses. Montauk’s untamed woodlands and resident trees have been contemplated by writers and artists alike. In the library’s collection and on the community room walls we see instances of their influence in poetry,… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — Keeping an Eye on the Harbor

Throwback Thursday — Keeping an Eye on the Harbor

“There was nothing there but a few screaming seagulls and the bell buoy, and the old fish house with the roof caving in,” Mary Gosman recollected, in a 1996 oral history interview, about the harbor area – mostly still swampland and sand — in 1943 when she and her husband, Robert, took over Charlie Bonner’s… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — Early Days of Surfing

Throwback Thursday — Early Days of Surfing

*A version of this post originally ran on September 28, 2022. New photographs and information about our current exhibition have been added.* As Autumn sets in, beachgoers clear the Montauk shorelines, retreating to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, and fall foliage excursions. Meanwhile, for surfers in the Northeast, the fall signals large swells generated by late-season… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — A Little Halloween Inspiration

Throwback Thursday — A Little Halloween Inspiration

  We hope these vintage photos will inspire your Halloween costume ideas. In return, can you help identify the people in disguise? The first one’s on us: Emily Burke Cullum and Buddy Burke, who were sister and brother, are the costumed cuties in the photo above. The year is probably about 1934; we’re not sure… Read more »

Throwback Thursday — Potholes to Parkways

Throwback Thursday — Potholes to Parkways

There wasn’t much going on here, road-wise, before Carl Fisher and Robert Moses got their hands on Montauk. Only really tough vehicles could navigate a cart track built from one end of Montauk to the other. And the laying of a new road from Amagansett to Montauk, using cinders donated by the railroad, was a… Read more »