Local History

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

Throwback Thursday – Now Screening

Did you know that Montauk’s first St. Patrick’s Day “parade” took place in 1947, years before the Montauk Friends of Erin was founded? On St. Patrick’s Day 76 years ago, four men decided to take a march down Main Street. They came to rest at what today is Shagwong Tavern (thus initiating a traditional pit… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Tick Hall

Throwback Thursday – Tick Hall

Harrison Tweed and six other sportsmen were delighted to be able to purchase Brightmoor, Andrew Orr’s old “cottage” in the Montauk Association, in March of 1924. Tweed and his friends paid a little more than $2,000 each for the house, which sat on 19-plus acres with 700 feet of oceanfront perfect for surfcasting for striped… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Montauk’s Skyscraper

Throwback Thursday – Montauk’s Skyscraper

“A seven-story office building went up on Great Plain, in the middle of a new business section,” Jeannette Edwards Rattray wrote in 1938 in her book about Montauk history. “On the top floor of the Montauk ‘skyscraper’ was Carl Fisher’s office, with a balcony around it, where he could sit like a monarch surveying his… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Girls on the Move

Throwback Thursday – Girls on the Move

Does anyone remember this bracing foray on Fort Pond Bay? We know that the year was 1963, the group were Montauk Girl Scouts, the leader wearing glasses was Betty Morici, and the photo was taken by Frank T. Moss. A Montauk troop—Troop No. 1 – of the Girl Scouts had been formed on February 16,… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Cast on the Shore of a Stranger

“No telegraph, no telephone, no mails even, to the Chincha Islands.”  — An East Hampton Childhood Mary Esther Mulford Miller was referring to three islands off Peru so richly populated with seabirds that their dung was packed as deep as 200 feet. Guano is highly valued as a fertilizer, which is why the clipper John Milton was filled with… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Seal Serenity

Throwback Thursday – Seal Serenity

“I have witnessed what must have been the ultimate in seal serenity,” Maxwell Corydon Wheat Jr. wrote in the January 1978 issue of Long Island Forum. On one especially frigid morning in Montauk in the winter of 1977, he said, ice that had formed on the shore broke off in floating chunks. “It was on one… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Hither Woods: Wilderness, Wildlife, Water

Throwback Thursday – Hither Woods: Wilderness, Wildlife, Water

The first campaign to preserve Hither Woods dates back to the early 1980s when environmental groups and concerned citizens united to save the land from private developers. Hither Woods consists of 1,357 acres of undisturbed oak and hickory forest, crossed with laurel-lined trails, and over 2 miles of coastline along the Block Island Sound. In… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Friend-ship

Richard B. Webb, an architect, designed the original Montauk Community Church and was a founding member when it opened in 1929. So it was fitting that almost 40 years later, when a new wing was added for offices and Sunday school classrooms, Richard Webb was the architect once again. He had moved to Montauk in… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – Dry January

Throwback Thursday – Dry January

Prohibition went into effect on January 17, 1920, creating a golden but dangerous opportunity for Montauk residents who wanted to earn extra money. Fishermen and others often moonlighted as bootleggers, taking small powerboats out to meet large international ships where U.S. territorial waters ended at “Rum Row.” They would pick up liquor and run it… Read more »

Throwback Thursday – That Perambulating Windmill

Throwback Thursday – That Perambulating Windmill

In January of 1942, the Army took over 468 acres next to the Montauk Lighthouse to create a coastal defense station — what today we call Camp Hero. Remote yet strategically vulnerable, almost all of Montauk would come to be occupied by the U.S. military during World War II.  “You had the Coast Guard up… Read more »