Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.
As firetrucks go the old red Dodge was a beast. In 1939 the newly formed Montauk Fire Department purchased it, and one more, to replace a truck the Montauk Beach Company had used in a makeshift effort to fight fires. Voters approved the expense despite it being the tail end of the Depression and not… Read more »
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 hurricanes and impending winter Nor’Easters. Crowded waves like the ones pictured above are no distant memory to Montauk surfers, especially those catching… Read more »
Is there anything sweeter than a community cookbook? Often compiled to raise money for a good cause, they tend to be stuffed with all manner of extra ingredients. Corny jokes, endearing illustrations, poetry, sage advice, tips for hunting, gathering, and fishing, the names of book committee volunteers and recipes from others fondly remembered, even celebrities… Read more »
Jerry was the first polo pony that Carl Fisher purchased, and he was his favorite right to the end. “In the Roaring Twenties if a young man flunked out of Harvard, Princeton or Yale, it was possible to salvage the family name by measuring him for a padded pith helmet and sending him off to… Read more »
This week we are throwing down the glove, er, kitchen mitt and challenging readers to identify the whos and whats on their own. (Actually, we only know the names of two whos.) The photographer, Ray Smith, worked in high fashion and advertising, then proceeded to capture a whole different world on his camera here in… Read more »
When school starts this week the yellow buses won’t look so different from the first one Cliff Windsor sent out to transport Montauk students in the 1940s. He must have been proud; these photos come from an archival collection donated to the Montauk Library by his son, Clifford Jr., and his son’s wife, Clara Windsor…. Read more »
Ocean waves tore through the dunes to breach Fort Pond. At least four feet of water flooded the highway on Napeague, and a radio tower toppled onto the train tracks there, blocking access to – or escape from – Montauk by that route. When Hurricane Carol struck the Northeast 68 years ago, on August 30,… Read more »
On the brink o’ the beach is right. The ocean hovers like a forgotten child in both these images of Gurney’s Inn. Warren and Maude Gurney managed the King Cole Hotel in Miami Beach for Carl Fisher, as well as a restaurant and inn in Forest Hills, before heading to Montauk to start a similar… Read more »
Montauk’s first community medical facility opened on Main Street in the summer of 1974. That’s almost half a century ago, but it would be wrong to forget the ingenuity and can-do spirit that made it possible. Hoping to attract a full-time physician to Montauk, the Chamber of Commerce spearheaded a drive to raise money… Read more »
Still image from a digitized home movie reel from the John Craft Moving Image Collection | Montauk Library Archives Montauk Library Archives Need a room? A meal? A building lot? A cooler filled with fish? Right this way! This fleeting gem is among a handful of short home reels that the Montauk Library digitized for… Read more »