Читать книгу A Small Town Love Story: Colonial Beach, Virginia - Sherryl Woods - Страница 9

A LOOK BACK:

A COLORFUL PAST, A QUIRKY PRESENT

Colonial Beach, Virginia’s amazing draw, can be dated all the way back to Captain John Smith, who allegedly sailed up the Potomac River and wrote of the area’s beauty and the plentiful fish in the waters.

In 1650, according to one school report in town library files, the area was first incorporated and called White Beach, because of its wide expanse of white sandy beaches, sand that was sold centuries later to beaches in another state in a shortsighted attempt to put cash into the town’s coffers.

One researcher found an early mention of George Washington watching the swans on the Potomac. Whether the swans are descendants or not is hard to say, but there is still a small family of swans in Colonial Beach, and sightings today are always worthy of a quick photo or comment.

Details from those very early times are difficult to come by, but in the comparatively short years since the town was renamed Colonial Beach and filed its town charter in 1892, it has reinvented itself over and over—from a tourist mecca and weekend destination for residents of Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, Richmond and Maryland in the 1890s, to a thriving haven for watermen from tiny, nearby islands seeking better opportunities, from a wild and woolly participant in the Oyster Wars of the 1950s, to a nationally known miniature version of Las Vegas with a lively boardwalk and flashy casinos, to its present-day reincarnation as a small quiet, family-oriented summer community. For many years it prided itself on its designation as the Playground of the Potomac.

Aerial view of the Yacht Center, 2012

Bathing beauties on Colonial Beach

Some of its stages have been colorful, some peaceful, some worthy of a Hollywood action movie.

Situated on a peninsula of land between the Potomac River at one of its widest points and Monroe Bay, named for President James Monroe, who was born nearby, Colonial Beach is in the heart of Virginia’s Northern Neck. It’s a region packed with history, including the birthplaces not only of Monroe, but of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. At Yeocomico Episcopal Church not far away, the cemetery provides the final resting places for several original members of the Virginia House of Burgesses from the 1600s.

Birthplace of George Washington, Colonial Beach

In its earliest days, when year-round residents were few—well under three thousand by some reports—there were still plenty of reasons for stressed-out folks from far bigger cities to travel to the tiny seaside town. The Colonial Beach Company, among others, operated steamboats from Washington, DC, with a stop in Alexandria, Virginia, to bring travelers to town for the day or overnight to wander the boardwalk, enjoy the entertainment, food and dancing. The St. Johns steamboat was the best known of these, so iconic, in fact, that its image became part of the town seal.

Colonial Beach Hotel

Beachgate

In those years, the owners of the Colonial Beach Company were visionaries who saw the possibilities for the future prosperity of the town. In their 1911 brochure, they promoted land sales, home building and keeping lot prices down. “Population creates wealth,” the brochure stressed.

To encourage visitors, the St. Johns steamboat left Washington daily at 9:00 a.m., except on Mondays and Saturdays. It arrived in Colonial Beach at 1:30 p.m. On Saturdays, it left Washington at 2:30 p.m. to encourage overnight stays. Advertised fares were fifty cents for adults, twenty-five cents for children, with special rates available for church groups.

Oldest house in Colonial Beach

In those days visitors could stay at one of several hotels in the town, including the sprawling Colonial Beach Hotel, which was once a home owned by General Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Several small hotels dotted the boardwalk and nearby side streets. There were rooming houses welcoming visitors as well and, in the evening, the sound of dinner bells ringing could be heard around town calling guests in for the evening meal.

The James Adams Floating Theater, reportedly the inspiration for Edna Ferber’s novel Show Boat, visited Colonial Beach on a regular basis as part of its circuit, and there are rumors that when that boat docked, rats fled onto land even as crowds flocked onboard to see the shows.

When it comes to which business was first established in town and which has been in business the longest in continuous operation, there is confusion. The Bank of Westmoreland, in the heart of what was once downtown, opened its doors in 1904 under the guidance of H.W.B. Williams. It continues in operation today, though under the BB&T name, following a stint as First Virginia Bank. The original building, at the corner of Hawthorn and Irving streets, served for a time as town offices, but now sits vacant and under the threat of being sold and possibly demolished, much to the dismay of historic preservationists and former employees who remember working there in its early years.

One of the earliest aerial images of the town features the main entrance where State Route 205 intersects with Colonial Avenue. Known as “Beachgate,” it once had an actual gate, reportedly to keep cows from wandering away. In that picture there are hints of what life was like in those early years—Blackie Christopher’s garage, Mrs. Jenkins’s restaurant and Bill Urbanck’s blacksmith shop. Today that same intersection features the town’s only traffic light, a McDonald’s, a BP gas station, the Colonial Beach Police Station, a discount store and a flooring company, among a few other businesses.

Support for the notion that the gate was there to prevent cows from getting loose on the highway comes from the fact that one section of town between Boundary Street and the area locals call the Point was called Cowtown.

Even in those very early years, the full-time residents of Colonial Beach sought out spiritual guidance. The first formal congregation was interdenominational. Founded in the 1880s, Union Church met in various places until it erected its own building, where the Methodist Church sits now, at the corner of Washington Avenue and Boundary Street. Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians and Methodists all worshipped there until each congregation built its own structure. The Baptist church opened in 1896, followed by the Catholic church in 1906. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church opened its doors in 1911. St. Mary’s also houses the only pipe organ in town, donated in 1941 by a family that purchased it from a church in Washington that was closing.

Patsy and Mrs. Hall at an early location of Hall’s Store

Westmoreland Drugstore, 1940s

One former resident, a Baptist herself, recalls filling in as organist at St. Mary’s for her music teacher, Mrs. Van Laer, in the 1950s after Mrs. Van Laer had a heart attack. Grace Roble Dirling was only thirteen at the time and ended up staying on in the “temporary” position until she went away to college. In return Mrs. Van Laer gave her free organ lessons.

During the intervening years between the opening of the Union Church and today, the choices for worship expanded—the Colonial Beach First Baptist Church, which had a segregated African-American congregation, the Colonial Beach Baptist Church, St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church, the Colonial Beach Methodist Church and, among the most recent, the New Life Ministries in 1984 and the River of Life Pentecostal Church.

If the town was lively in its earliest years, thanks to summer visitors who arrived by steamboat or ferry and later, after the opening of the Nice Bridge between Maryland and Virginia via US Route 301, by car, it was nothing compared to the hordes that came during the town’s gambling heyday.

Pool party, 1958

Casinos, built out over the Potomac on pilings past the high water mark to put them officially into Maryland waters, first opened their doors in 1950. Brightly lit with neon signs in true Las Vegas fashion, the Little Steel Pier, Jackpot, Monte Carlo and Little Reno casinos turned the boardwalk into a beehive of activity. Some reports suggest as many as twenty thousand weekend visitors came to town to gamble at the rows of colorful, noisy slot machines.

But if the slot machines were the draw for some adults, there was more than enough for children and families to do along the boardwalk. Amusement park rides sprawled across a grassy area, along with a miniature train—The Little Dipper—that wound its way around the perimeter. Dancing and roller-skating were available in Joyland. Carnival-style games in open booths—a shooting gallery, a ball pitch and ring tosses, among others—drew crowds.

Walk-up food vendors offered everything from snowballs in a rainbow of flavors and frozen custard, to peanuts, popcorn, hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and corn dogs. Souvenir shops sold the usual mementos. And the sounds of competing bingo parlor announcers filled the salty night air, adding to the allure of their tables of prizes. Some of the carnival and Depression glass items given away for a handful of winning tickets back then are still prized by collectors.

Sunrise over Colonial Beach

Small hotels with rockers on the porch dotted the boardwalk, as well—Wolcott’s, DeAtley’s, Fries and Rock’s. Alice Rock was something of a town legend and served as grand marshal of the town’s Potomac River Festival parade to honor her contributions to the boardwalk’s lively heyday.

Remains of Little Steel Pier after Hurricane Hazel

Colonial Beach boardwalk destroyed by Hurricane Hazel

Damage by Hurricane Isabel

Colonial Beach boardwalk destroyed by Hurricane Isabel

When it came to merchants in town, among the most notable were the Foxes, the Coopers and the Klotzes. One of the first general merchandise stores was opened by Harris Fox on Hawthorn Street and touted that it sold everything from “candy to caskets.” The Klotz family later opened its Gem Five and Ten Cents store in that location. Not far away, Cooper’s was opened with an equally diverse range of merchandise. Its slogan was “We Sell Everything.” After it closed, the land was donated to the town and became the Cooper Branch of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library and the Colonial Beach Town Center.

Though far inland from the Atlantic Ocean, Colonial Beach has not been immune to hurricanes and other major storms. A 1918 storm destroyed property and wharves in town. Further damage was done by another storm in 1933. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 slammed into the boardwalk and knocked casinos from their pilings. There were reports of residents flocking to the Potomac in search of any surviving liquor bottles and coins from the slot machines. Hurricane Agnes hit in 1972 and most recently, in 2003, Hurricane Isabel destroyed or seriously flooded restaurants and other property on the water.

During virtually the same years as the gambling heyday, there was a different kind of chaos on the waters of the Potomac. After World War II, both Maryland and Virginia banned the dredging of oysters from the bottom of the river. Dredging, experts believed, destroyed the oyster beds. Oystermen were restricted to tonging, a more labor-intensive technique intended to protect the beds and keep oyster supplies flourishing.

Maryland patrol boats, however, were reportedly far more aggressive about enforcing the restrictive law than Virginia officers. And Virginia-based watermen were seemingly far more determined to harvest oysters by dredging. They took their boats, often equipped with exceptionally fast surplus military engines, out at night and continued dredging. These cat-and-mouse games during the era that came to be known as the Oyster Wars erupted into wild chases on the water with guns blazing and spectators on shore observing the battles as if watching a Hollywood action movie.

Only when the battle turned deadly in 1959 with the shooting of Colonial Beach waterman Berkeley Muse did the Oyster Wars end. Legislation eventually formed the Potomac River Fisheries Commission in 1962 to regulate fishing, oystering and crabbing on the Potomac. In the documentary, Watermen of Colonial Beach, written and directed by John Sweton, the then-head of the Fisheries Commission, Kirby A. Carpenter, was asked if the commission had been successful. His reply: “I don’t know if it’s been successful, but nobody’s lost their life over a damn oyster.”

With access to the casinos in town outlawed in 1959, around the same time as the end of the Oyster Wars, life turned calm in Colonial Beach. Crowds no longer flocked to the tiny seaside town. Hotels and motels closed. Buildings along the boardwalk stood vacant and were eventually sold to the town and torn down. The landmark Colonial Beach Hotel took in its last customers in 1981 and was torn down in 1984.

Some say that was the beginning of the end for the tiny community, still with fewer than five thousand year-round residents. Others point to another change that affected the town’s identity. Its first actual shopping center, on Euclid Avenue at First Street, opened in the 1970s with an A&P grocery store, a drugstore, a Ben Franklin and a hardware store. The post office, which had also been at the center of the once-thriving downtown area where people crowded the sidewalks on Saturdays especially to shop, chat with neighbors and get their mail, also moved to First Street, about a block from the shopping center. That change ended the days of an informal gathering place where news was shared.

Swans enjoying the waters of Colonial Beach

Now neighbors run into each other on a casual basis only during the Second Friday Art Walks to various galleries scattered around town, at one of the summertime concerts or events on the town’s green, at church suppers or occasionally in the aisles of the Food Lion or Hall’s store just outside of town.

Like all small towns, times in Colonial Beach have changed. It has reinvented itself time and again over the years and, no doubt, will again.

Sloan Wilson, famed for writing The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which later became a movie starring Gregory Peck, lived for a time aboard his boat at Stanford’s Railway Marina on Monroe Bay. In his self-published book, A Talking Boat: The Story of the Yacht Hermione, he described Colonial Beach as a town that “has a lot of quirky charm” and “a somewhat raffish reputation.”

Locals prize those apt descriptions, but wonder if they’ll ever apply in quite the same way again.