By Marilyn May
Milford History
When anything reaches the 100-year mark, there’s a lot to celebrate. The Bay View Improvement Association, founded in Milford in 1921, will host a big get-together on June 26 with some activities reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties.
Celebration planning was stalled for a while by COVID-19 concerns, but organizers are back at work and hoping to have events once popular in the 1920s, such as pie baking contests and flower arranging challenges. They also will have activities for children and a band at night. Stay tuned: there are a lot more events to be announced.
It’s a little challenging to find much about Bay View in Milford history books; eavesdropping on current Facebook sites is the best way to find the personal stories.
Apparently, rafts in the swimming area were very popular. As one person put it, “Who among us, blessed to still be here and reminiscing back some fifty or sixty years ago can hardly forget a swim at Bayview without remembering it as a child as being a shear feat just to reach either the left or right swim deck using only your first exhausting dog paddle. Needless to say, who could have guessed that this single leg event would evolve into the more infamous ‘three-raft-race.’”
Many summers there were beach sports and swimming events at Bay View Beach. The winners awarded ribbons and trophies fondly remember the fun. One woman wrote about her father who was born in 1929 and as a teenager won the “point to point” swim race. She still has the top of her father’s trophy. “The trophy is beautiful, a man swimming in waves,” she wrote.
Another online post read, “I grew up in Bayview from 1965-1980s, the association always had something fun going on from 3 legged races to costume contests; all kinds of things to do, great place to grow up!”
The development of Bay View and other shoreline beaches began with realtor George Haskins, widely known as the “Shore Lot Man.” In the early 1900s he plotted out hundreds of small sites for cottages to be used in summers only. According to residents, many who summered in Milford were from Yonkers, Queens, the Bronx and no doubt from places in Connecticut. In later years furnaces and insulation were added to cottages, and families began living there year-round. The land records in the City Clerk’s office list countless transactions by Haskins. Many people in Bay View today are the third generation of their families to live there.
An early photo of George Haskins’ office on the beach. The signs show he is selling short lots and cottages. Photo courtesy of the Daniel E. Moger photo collection.
Bay View (which at different times has been called Bay-View and Bayview) is a “quasi municipality that is chartered by the State of Connecticut and is a special taxing district,” according to Doreen Stomsky, a planning committee member.
“All homeowners in the association have deeded rights to the beach,” Stomsky said, adding this means those in the association’s 340-plus homes share the beach and grassy land area directly across the street. The Bay View Beach shoreline is 600 feet of open space above the mean high tide water mark.
Bay View’s western border starts at Westland Avenue. Going east it encompasses the land just before the Calf Pen Meadow Creek.
Photo of Orland Street in the Bay View Beach area in the early 1940s. Notice the unpaved roadway. Photo courtesy of the Daniel E. Moger photo collection.
One more Facebook quote about the beach is likely to bring back memories for lots of people: “How good all the moms smelled with their Ban de Soleil tanning cream! Would love just one hour to be back there!”
In case you never noticed, every July 4 Bay View has one of the most spectacular fireworks displays in the area. Association board members are planning a great summer.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and is on the board of the Milford Historical Society.