Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.
In the early months of 1948, the federal government moved to establish an animal disease laboratory at Camp Hero, which was no longer active as an Army base. The USDA hoped to develop a vaccine to protect livestock from hoof-and-mouth disease, which had infected cattle in Mexico and, it was feared, could play a role… Read more »
There was a surprisingly glamorous whiff to fish on Montauk Harbor in the 1970s and early 1980s. The commercial dock, Gosman’s retail and wholesale seafood operation next door, the new Dock restaurant next door to that – for many, work was hard and physical, and opportunities to kick back were most welcome. These photos come… Read more »
The vernal equinox on March 20th marked the onset of spring, as the sun passed the equator on its path northward, bringing with it longer and warmer days to the Northern Hemisphere. On March 21st, 1946 (the year the above photo was taken), the East Hampton Star reported “Spring is here today!… Cover crops are… Read more »
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 »
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 »
“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 »
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 »
“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 »
“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 »
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 »