Sometimes they ended up virtually only residential type communities and sometimes recreational facilities were also promoted.
In Milford there was the Laurel Beach Casino. I know little or almost nothing at this time. Trolleys did serve this area so the Trolley ?
A 1906 photograph shows us a quaintly appealing building, topped by a widow's walk and graced by ladies in mutton-chop sleeves on the veranda watching a horseless carriage chug down Milford Point Road. Distance lends enchantment. Mr. Gordy writes, "The building was not attractive." It was a two story affair, very much like and old barn. The dance hall was on the second floor. . . It was built by the Laurel Beach Casino Company, a private corporation, on land given by the Laurel Beach Land Company. Later the Corporation was dissolved and the Casino property turned over to the Laurel Beach Association in consideration of the Association assuring the $3,500 mortgage. This was about 1916 to 1918. The new building had done, I think, all that we anticipated. It has largely kept our young people away from road houses. We occupied it in 1929."
A number of those young people who Mr. Gordy believed were lured away from Gatsby-era road houses by the new Casino are now property owners in their own right. They may possibly have other opinions.
In any case, much of the activity, social and civic, of the Beach has centered in the Casino. It has seen dramatic confrontations and annual meetings over budgets, utilization of facilities, shore erosion and dog walking. It has witnessed our awakening environmental concerns over the pollution of our own beach, wildlife protection in our neighboring wetlands and noise pollution from our nearby airport which has ambitions to become a jetport.
It has seen scuffles which nearly became duels-cum-family-feuds, bridge tournaments in the '30s, and high-decibel rock concerts in the '70s. Almost every kind of dance, award ceremony, children's entertainment and committee meeting has taken place in its spacious main ballroom. And in keeping with the continually changing times in which we live, the traditional barriers against liquor were relaxed some 10 years ago to permit guests to bring their own refreshment to the Saturday night dances. But the jacket-and-tie regulation for men remains in force. In many ways, the Casino typifies the agelessness and the change, the firmly tooted tradition and the constant rejuvenation that characterize Laurel Beach.
Seventy-five years is a long time in the life of a man. It is almost no time in the life of beaches and oceans. If we can learn a little of the lesson of the beach in our front yard, constantly rejuvenated by the tides, perhaps we can continue to be the dream that renews itself for generations to come.