In 1953, Westport illustrator Stevan Dohanos posed some Camp Mahackeno boys at the wooden bridge, where Poplar Plains Brook runs into the Saugatuck River.
The result was a classic Saturday Evening Post cover.
This afternoon — 58 years later — Westport Y officials gathered some Water Rat swim team members at the same spot.
A few things were different — there’s no totem pole, but there are girls and safety railings — yet much remained the same.
The kids loved the watermelon. The trees and rocks haven’t moved. There’s still no mountain in the background (Dohanos’ artistic license).
(Photo/Miggs Burroughs)
The photo will be used as part of the Y’s fundraising campaign. And although the new Y will be built just a few yards from where the 1953 cover was drawn — and the 2011 photo taken — the brook and river will remain.
Hopefully they’ll look the same in 2069 — 58 years from now.
(The August 1, 1953 Saturday Evening Post cover is courtesy of Peter Prigge — a Mahackeno camper who posed for Dohanos’ illustration.)