History - Sodus

Sodus Point in the 1920's

By Richard D. Meyer, NHS Class '28

Courier-Gazette, October 21, 1994

In the Twenties, the trip to Sodus Point was an adventure in itself. The major road-building effort of the early Twenties was slow in reaching Sodus Point. The last few miles were on a narrow dirt road. The cars of those days had narrow hard tires subject to blowouts and punctures. They had none of the present day comfort. The dust, the heat and the discomfort often led to disaster before the family arrived for its summer Sunday treat.

However, the indignities of the trip plus the unreasonable cries of the children, "Are we there yet?" all vanished on arrival at the beautiful sand beach and cooling breezes.

I remember that the permanent residents lived mostly to the west of the railroad. And then there were the summer people: the transients, like the dusty family above and the summer residents. Around the Bay there were four distinct areas, each I thought, with characteristics of its own: The Point itself with its beach, "downtown" and the cottages; the South Shore; the Bluff; and the Bar.

The Point had all the action! Cottages varied from pretty primitive boathouses with living arrangements, to cottages of one or two floors, to few all-season houses down toward the east end of the Point.

Most of the cottages bore fancy names: Bide a Wee, Hardli-a-House, Kumagain and other fanciful titles. Only the few all-season houses out beyond the Yacht Club were completely finished inside. In others, the room dividers varied from curtains on wire to unfinished walls with studs showing. Cooking was done on kerosene stoves with circular wicks which gave a distinctive flavor to most dishes. Living accommodations were often quite primitive. Hand pumps for water and other "plumbing" arrangements wouldn't meet EPA standards today. A few of the cottages had electricity.

Driving into the Point, my landmark was the old Pennsylvania Railroad Station. The railroad line came up from the South through Newark past the old coal dock (Was in operation in 1873. The Coal Trestle was built in 1927 and while being dismantled because of decreased use of coal for power was destroyed by fire in 1971.) and on into the "downtown." Just beyond the station was a famous ice cream store, Dovilles, unique in that it served ice cream in homemade rolled cake cones for a dime. Elsewhere single dippers came in the regular cone. They tasted as I expected cardboard would, but came for a nickel.

The main and only street was lined on both sides with hot dog stands, game rooms (no electronics!) and souvenir shops. A little farther on was the Dance Hall which was filled every summer night with couples dancing to a seven or eight-piece band made up of college men from Syracuse earning their college expenses.

Every dance set cost a dime, as I remember, and lasted five to ten minutes. Then the floor would be cleared and we started all over. I remember as a kid, "hanging out" in the open siding that was closed in bad weather by a hinged blind on a pulley. Here my 11- to 13-year-old comrades and I looked out over the band and watched the dancers. A few years later we joined the dancers. There were fox trots and waltzes for couples of all ages from high schoolers ("teenagers" had not been invited yet) to parents. Dancing was a contact sport in those days, the male led and the female had to follow. They were very good at it.

We used to swim off the Yacht Club pier, the only place to dive. It was OK, but the old wooden pier was full of splinters - the price we had to pay for the privilege.

Beyond the Club and to the north, two massive breakwaters formed the channel from Lake Ontario into the Bay. At the end of the west pier (first constructed in 1834, improved over the years and still in use) stood a lighthouse. I walked out there one time with Robbo Robinson.

The light keeper invited us to watch him light the light. At the top of a wrought iron circular staircase was a massive cut glass and brass affair on a rotating pedestal. The keeper opened the lens and proceeded to light an ordinary oil lantern which gave out a flame about two inches wide. The cut glass lens of the light was made up of precise horizontal ridges. That marvelous lens focused the tiny flame into a beam which swept out on the lake and around over South Shore at a precise rate.

The beam could be seen for miles. As the beam swept around, it was interrupted so that it blinked out a code to be interpreted by the mariners as the Sodus Point Light. Many years later, I learned that the curiously cut glass was called a Fresnel Lens.

As we finally drove up to Sodus Point (via Route 14) after that long dusty drive, we passed a great coal dock on the west shore of the Bay. Although long abandoned, a tall silo and endless belt loading down to the water's edge was the signal that "we were there yet!" The old coal trestle (built in 1870s, was completely rebuilt and enlarged to 600 feet in length and 60 feet in height in 1927 and burned in 1971) was used to load coal shipped by railroad from the coal fields in Pennsylvania onto the coal-burning ships which plied the Lakes in large numbers, many in the export of coal to Canada and also American ports.

As I look back on the times of my boyhood, I remember the South Shore as housing sailors. Each cottage seemed to have its own little pier with everything from sailing dinghies to Star boats tied up. The Star had a heavily weighted keel and lots of sail - very seaworthy.

The tempo of South Shore was easygoing. Besides boating there was fishing. You could eat the fish you caught without fear of pollution!

The Bluff is very much changed now, I am told. In the Twenties it was a high wooded headland which could only be reached by a dirt road coming up well to the east of the Bay. Even though it was eroding gradually, as time passed, one after another of the cottages fell into Lake Ontario as the rim of the Bluff eroded away.

The Bluff cottagers were fairly constant in that nearly all owned their cottages and stayed the whole summer. On the Bay level, there were also a number of small cottages and boathouses which had a more transient population. I remember that it was a long walk up the hill to the topside, because for several seasons, my folks occupied one of them for a few weeks each summer.

It was a peaceful place. As high schoolers, a bunch of us used to gather on the rim of the Bluff at night and watch the stars. On nights that were black, the Milky Way blazed out. With all the smog today, I can't recall having seen such a display of the Milky Way for years. A couple times we saw the Northern Lights flaring up and over the Lake. And we sang songs, harmonizing. These songs had tunes and we understood singing in harmony, thanks to Miss Florence Bain, our school music teacher. We dated but the girls always had to be in by a specific time ] no arguments.

The Bar also was different. It was a long, low sandy spit closing the Bay from the Bluff to the Channel. I understand it has also partially washed away. I wonder if it is beginning to rebuild itself. Back then, there were many fairly elaborate cottages. I always thought those residents as the wealthier group because you had to have a power boat of sorts to get back and forth. There was no land connection to the mainland except the sandy beach which led to the Bluff a couple miles away.

Once away from the Point, it was a quiet world of sailing, boating, fishing, card playing, swimming and even biking. As youngsters we had lots of freedom and lots of dating or just mixed company.

Admittedly, my memories are hazed in soft pink, but we had a good time growing up. I can sympathize with the young people of today without understanding why their lives are so different. Mine was a good time to grow up and Sodus Point was a happy place to be.

(At the time of this writing, Lt. General Richard D. Meyer and wife lived in Akron, Ohio.)

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