Montauk Book To Be Launched Memorial Day Weekend

There she was! The Marion H., berthed securely on page 100 of the newly released book “Images of America: Montauk.”

An East Hampton family—Montauk Library archivist Robin Strong preferred not to share their name—had been searching for a photo of their grandfather’s boat for decades. After the family discovered it in the new book—which will be officially launched on Saturday, May 23, with a gallery opening, slide show and discussion—they paid a visit to Ms. Strong in her climate-controlled den in the library’s lower level, their own old photos in hand, to contribute to the growing collection of material reflecting the history of Montauk.

And while they were there, Ms. Strong helped them find, in a photo of Montauk’s old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay, which is also in the book, their ancestors’ restaurant, circa the 1930s, as well as the home they had lived in at that time.

“You solved two of my family’s mysteries in one week,” they told the archivist, who couldn’t wait to tell the people who had donated the photographs. “That’s what makes this job so rewarding,” she said recently.

Ms. Strong co-authored the book with the library, drawing from its archival photos of late 19th- to 20th-century Montauk history to create, as she put it, “the story of modern Montauk as told through the images.”

Many of the photos were donated or loaned to make digital copies when the archivist, and others were interviewing longtime Montauk residents for an oral history project from 2002 to 2005 that documented Montauk’s history, beginning with its time as a fishing village occupied by recent Nova Scotian immigrants living in homes made of fish-box materials, as cattle grazed and bootleggers did their thing.

Through the photos, the new book notes Montauk’s history as pasture land; as a center of fishing, life-saving and shipwrecks, and hurricane damage; as a base for soldiers returning from the Spanish-American War, a U.S. Navy air station and National Guard training camp, a Navy testing ground (for which all the residents of the old fishing village were suddenly displaced), an Army Signal Corps unit, and an Air Force station; and as a summer resort for industry and railroad tycoons like Arthur Benson and Austin Corbin, then as a potential “Miami Beach of the North” for 1920s developer Carl Fisher, whose imprint is still obvious today.

It also chronicles Montauk a the home of enduring or extinct establishments like Gurney’s and other inns, Trail’s End, Gosman’s and other restaurants, and various taverns, luncheonettes, general stores and hotels—and as a community of real-live people, from schoolchildren to church-goers to firefighters and library supporters.

In fact, the book’s release coincides with a celebration of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the library in 1980. And what better person to chronicle Montauk’s history than Ms. Strong, whose great-great-grandfather Captain James Scott was a keeper at the Montauk Lighthouse and whose daughter Emily married James Madison Strong of the former Strong Blacksmith Shop in East Hampton, who would travel by horse and sleigh from East Hampton to court Emily at the very easternmost point of Long Island?

Choosing which photos to include “was painstaking—the images are like my babies,” said Ms. Strong, adding that she could have done a separate book on fishing alone. She also tried to include photos from as many of the library’s collections as possible. “The people in Montauk are so loyal,” she said, explaining that they prefer to see their family photographs stay within the hamlet, especially in the safety of the library.

“I had a blast making it,” Ms. Strong said of the book. “I hope people are happy with it, to see what was going on all those years before.”

An exhibit of poster-size black-and-white prints of photos in the book will open at the library from 6 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, followed from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. by a slide presentation and discussion led by Ms. Strong. She said she hopes people in the audience will step up with their own stories about the people or things they recognize in the photos.

Ms. Strong will also sign copies of the book, which sells for $22 and whose proceeds go to the Friends of the Montauk Library. Saturday’s event itself is free.