Oakwood Stand - Last of a Breed

You may have noticed that a small piece of our past, the Oakwood Stand, disappeared from the landscape in May. Not to say its hadn’t seen better days, because frankly, it was falling apart as were the adjacent guest rooms and dining hall, but it was a wonderful reminder of small town America long before Ray Kroc purchased a dairy bar from the McDonald brothers.

Oakwood was owned and operated beginning in the 1930’s by my great aunt Hazel Markham Coe Gilmore. At Oakwood, you could get a sizzling burger or hotdog, hand cut French fries, a shake or an icy Coke while you relaxed at a picnic table overlooking Lake Pocotopaug. The only historical culinary experience comparable in the area still operating is Harry’s in Colchester. Oakwood also had guest cottages and rooms available for an extended stay and it was, in its heyday, one of nearly a dozen locations on Lake Pocotopaug such as Edgemere, Lakeview House, Pocotopaug Lodge, Clearwater, and the Terramaugus House providing accommodations to the city dweller seeking refuge from the summer heat.

Thinking about the demise of the vacation resorts and camps is somewhat maudlin but also a bit poetic. As the walls were crushed and crammed into dumpsters, it signaled and vividly portrayed the end of an era on Lake Pocotopaug. Although unrelated, within days, Helen Condon, Hazel’s daughter, passed away peacefully in the night. Helen and her sisters, Dorothy Peterman who had died just a few years ago, and Marion Roberts, worked summers at the stand and guest cottages as did my Dad, Don Markham during his high school years.

Boy Scout Island

Lake Pocotopaug’s Laurel Island, as named by its current owner, Jack Solomon, is recognized more appropriately as West Island, or by me growing up, as Boy Scout Island. Today the Solomon’s use the island as a retreat and rent cottages to summer visitors and vacationers, as did its previous owner Bob Weiss who acquired it in 1962.

Up until the 1940s, the island was know as West Island and owned by the Purple/Buell Family since their forbearers acquired it and the “twin” East Island in colonial times. For several summers when I was a boy, I visited my friend Bruce Tolhurst for a week on East Island staying in one of the cottages owned by his mother, Eleanor Purple Tolhurst.

But back to West Island which had another distinction. Purchased on June 8, 1944, by the Central Connecticut Council, Incorporated, Boy Scouts of America, it was the annual summer camp for boy scouts from the Meriden – Southington – Cheshire area. A mess hall/pavilion and cabins were erected at Camp Terramuggus where numerous boys escaped city life for the wilds of East Hampton and its fabled Lake Pocotopaug - among them my friend, Warren Cyr. Warren’s initial visit to this town which he now calls home was as a Boy Scout.

A picture from 1954 depicting the scouts who attended that summer. Warren Cyr is 3rd from left in first row.

While researching the history of Sears Park, I located a letter dated March 3, 1935 from Executive Director John Roberts to Sears Park Trustees requesting “the privilege of erecting and maintaining a temporary dock and roadway to said dock for a term of 8 years,” which was granted by Trustees Ernest G. Cone, Albert Starr, J. Howell Conklin, Lewis T. Evans, Carl Terp, Fred H. Barton, Secretary and Chairman Mertin Weir. West Island, or as we’ve always know it locally, Boy Scout Island, was rented for at least 10 years prior to its purchase by the Scouts.

Remembering Summer

Now that summer seems to have finally arrived, these warm, lazy days reminded me of weekly occurrences – a parade of summer vacationers walking up Main Street for a stay at one of our local resorts. Our house was on East High Street where Citizen’s Bank is now located and I would watch from the sidewalk with great curiosity.

Back from the 1920s to 1950s,
East Hampton was the
home of several vacation hotels.
Not as grand as some of the famous
Catskill hotels such as Grossinger’s,
our Edgemere and Lakeview House
competed for New Yorkers seeking rest and relaxation and relieve from the city heat.



Every Friday afternoon throughout the summer, the train would deposit visitors at the depot (behind the Firehouse on Barton Hill). An old Mack truck would collect the luggage and cart it to the appropriate resort with the guests usually walking from the Village Center up Main Street and North Main to their final destination. On occasion, either the more affluent or those incapable of walking would call John Peterson who operated our local taxi service.

As interesting as Friday’s parade was, Sunday mornings were an even greater spectacle. The hub of activity was Thatcher’s Drug Store (the original location on the west side of the building) at the corner of Main Street and Route 6A (now Route 66). My weekly chore was to pick up the Hartford Courant and New York Journal American. Here I would hobnob and observe customers, townspeople, and these out of town vacationers alike as they picked up the Sunday paper or got a 10 cent cup of coffee or an egg cream. It’s almost unimaginable that upwards to 100 people could squeeze into the store with only 10 stools at the soda fountain. And there greeting this mob were Raymond “Deke” Thatcher (who was Comptroller of Connecticut) and Eaton Smith (Director of Food & Drug for the State) who manned the cash register.

It was a wonderful time.




We’ll unlikely never see a return of vacation resorts on Lake Pocotopaug, but maybe we will all experience a return of the crystal clear waters the Lake once had.