Today
much of the coasts of the United States are a mix of public and
private beaches. The rich own strips of sand in front of their
property while cities and towns purchase plots of land for the
average everyday people to use.
The
coastlines were not created as public or private. Many steps go into
creating a public beach. Things like legal ownership, planning,
regulations, zoning, and meetings are parts of what takes an area
from an inconspicuous stretch of sand to a beach packed with people
in summertime.
Though
no two are exactly the same one example of land going from private to
public resides on Cape Cod. At the mouth of Bass River, a waterway
running in between the towns of Yarmouth and Dennis, there are
popular beaches on both sides.
They
both went from private to public. On the Dennis(east) side of Bass
River sits Davis Beach. Known more commonly as West Dennis Beach this
stretch of sand nearly a mile and a half in length was owned for
decades by Charles Henry Davis. He had deep connections to Cape Cod
including the creation of America’s first traffic circle at the
meeting of River and Pleasant Streets in the Bass River section of
South Yarmouth.
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| America's first traffic circle in South Yarmouth. |
Davis
at one point it was said could walk from Nantucket Sound on the south
coast of Cape Cod all the way to Cape Cod Bay on the north side and
never leave the property he owned. This included all of what is today
West Dennis Beach. The acquisition of this pristine set of sand was
simple and straightforward. Davis sold the property to the Town of
Dennis shortly before he died in 1951 for the cool sum of
$50,000($589,900 in 2024).
West
Dennis Beach has a story that is for all intents and purposes simple
and clear-cut. Across Bass River in Yarmouth, the beach has a slightly
more complex story. It includes bootlegging, giant resort hotels, and
more transfers of ownership than one might expect.
Present-day
Bass River Beach began as the property of Joseph P. Phelan. Born in
Ireland in 1888 Phelan came to America and settled in Fall River,
Massachusetts. He was a successful businessman making significant
money with his popular Cape Cod Shirt Company that he established in
1926.
Phelan
purchased a triangular-shaped plot of land on the western side of the
mouth of Bass River in an area known as The Point from Edward Gleason
in April 1926. There he had a summer home constructed. In total, it
was ten rooms including five bedrooms along with a wooden pier that
stretched out into the ocean. The family’s arrival at the beginning
of the summer was headline news in the local newspapers. When they
weren’t at the home it was rented out with those renters also
making the local news.
The
beach at The Point grew substantially in size when in the early 1950s
efforts were made to dredge Bass River. The spoils were piled onto
either side of the mouth of the river.
For
a few years, the piles of dredged sediment sat there. They were used
as picnic areas, or for kids to play on. Eventually, Yarmouth used their spoils to fill in the marshland abutting the Phelan property. This
also served to fill in the creek leading from nearby Run Pond to
Nantucket Sound which was a bone of contention with some locals. In
total, the Phelan property was thirteen acres of waterfront land.
During
the early 1950’s the Town of Yarmouth had begun buying up
beachfront property to be designated for public use. This included
buying present-day Sea Gull Beach in 1951 for $25,000($300,000 in
2024), as well as the far smaller Englewood Beach for $9,000($106,000
in 2024) in 1952. As the Phelan property was only in use for a few
months of the year rumblings began locally about the town buying that
as well.
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| Bass River looking south toward the former Phelan property |
In 1958 Joseph Phelan offered to sell the coveted property to the
town for $150,000($1.62 million in 2024). Despite there being support
for a new public beach the offer was deemed too high and the town
passed. Talks of taking the property by eminent domain were voted
down at the time. This left Harwich Port real estate broker John J.
Taylor to swoop in and buy the land in September 1959 from Phelan for
a far more affordable price of $80,000($858,600 in 2024).
The
Town of Yarmouth had balked at the high price of the Phelan property.
However when confronted with Taylor’s proposal for what to do with
the land the town had wished they’d paid the price.
The
plan was to subdivide part of the land for houses and leave a large
tract of it to be used for a three-story, 180-room, waterfront resort
hotel. This was rejected by the town which left the property in
limbo.
Besieged
with hurdles and roadblocks surrounding the thirteen acres of
waterfront property Taylor sold the land to Sidney Tucker and Paul
Lampros in August 1961 for $140,000($1.46 million in 2024). Only a
few months later in March 1962 the Town of Yarmouth stepped in and
took 10.5 of the thirteen acres of land by eminent domain. The Phelan
summer home and a few lots of land surrounding it were left private.
Tucker and Lampros sued the town in September 1962, arguing the land's value.
The
proceedings dragged on in court until May 1964. However, once the jury
got the case it took a mere twenty-eight minutes to award Tucker and
Lampros a whopping $270,000($2.76 million in 2024) for the former
Phelan property. This meant that essentially the Town of Yarmouth had
paid nearly double the original asking price Joseph Phelan had
offered which was seen as exorbitant.
Despite
the long road and extra money paid, Yarmouth had its newest public
beach. To cover the cost of the new beach as well as the new parking
lot needed the town ultimately decided to start charging for parking
during the tourist season. This was the start of buying beach
stickers in Yarmouth.
Next
up was the important task of naming the stretch of sand. In the local
newspapers, it had been referred to as Phelan Beach since it was first
offered for purchase in 1958. The name chosen was the on-the-nose
name of Bass River Beach. However, locals rarely call it by that name.
In
the six decades since Phelan Beach became Bass River Beach the area
at the mouth of the river has been known more frequently as
Smuggler’s Beach. But why? It is due to the stories of rum-running
or bootlegging that took place in the area during Prohibition.
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| Did bootlegging take place at Smuggler's Beach? |
The
Smuggler’s Beach name becomes even more appropriate when coupled
with the story of the Casa Madrid establishment. Located a few
hundred yards from the beach on Run Pond Road the Casa Madrid opened
in 1933 as a dancing and eating establishment. Only six weeks into
its existence though it was raided by law enforcement and exposed as
a speakeasy.
Did
the liquor seized from Casa Madrid come from the nearby beach? One
cannot say for sure, but the legend of Smuggler’s Beach draws
heavily on that possibility.
From
a summer home abutted by marshland to a hugely popular public beach
the area formerly known as The Point in Yarmouth has taken a long
road to get to where it is in the present day. It is an interesting
dichotomy between the straightforward route of Charles Henry Davis’
property becoming West Dennis Beach and Joseph Phelan’s property
becoming Bass River Smuggler’s Beach.
