As Westport’s Parks & Recreation Department prepares Compo Beach for another season, we think of that town jewel as timeless.
In many ways, it is.
But in other ways, it’s not.
This photo, taken soon after a 1950 hurricane, shows the destruction on the boardwalk.
(Photo/Hereward Wake, courtesy of Christopher Maroc)
Bathhouses and the lifeguard station lie in ruins. (The iconic brick showers were untouched).
Look further north. At the far right are the remains of what was then a 2-story pavilion. A ballroom was on top.
After it collapsed, and the debris was hauled away, the roof was saved. Today, it covers the picnic tables near the playground and volleyball courts.
Here’s another photo, from 10 years later:
(Photo/George Mench, courtesy of Christopher Maroc)
Don’t concentrate on the Porsche 356 or models, posing for the cover of Porsche Magazine.
Don’t look at the cannons — already several decades old — or Compo Cove in the distance.
Instead, check out the rocks.
In 1960, all of Compo Beach looked like that.
From one end to the other, the beach was covered with rocks.
A couple of years later, a massive project made Compo much sandier — and far more enjoyable.
The beach we love today is nothing like the one of 6 decades ago.
You just need to know where to look.
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My late mother loved the beach when she was a teen in Westport. I remember when we were little kids she would bring us to Compo often every summer. Until now though I had forgotten how rocky it was back in the 60’s; you’d never know it by the way it looks today.
Green’s Farms beach was much worse if you’re talking rocks. If you took the wealth of Elon Musk, turned it into pennies, and dumped the pennies on the beach, that’s how many rocks were on that beach!! This is NOT an exaggeration!!!
In 1956 3 three of us were the first girl lifeguards on LI Sound. A big barge pulled up in front of the beaches and sucked sand from the bottom of the Sound and deposited it on our beaches. Can’t remember if it took one summer or 2.
I remember visiting the beach as a child when it was all rocks – in the 50’s.
So glad to see this documentation, Dan. The woman who introduced me to Westport (Staples ’67) told me Compo had been rocks, and I never believed her.