Station Rockaway, New York
USLSS Station #35, Third District
Coast Guard Station #91
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Location:
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On Rockaway Beach, 2-3/4 miles east from west end of Rockaway Point and 6 7/8 miles east northeast of Romer Shoal Light; 40-35' 30"N x 37-47' 30"W in 1915
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Date of Conveyance
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1910
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Station Built:
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1872
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Fate:
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Turned over to the GSA in 1960 (?)
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Remarks:
Authorized by the establishing act of 14 December 1854, a boathouse was built on Barron Island and designated as Barron Island and designated as Barron Island No. 10. A keeper, John Abrams, was identified in the records from the year 1853 although it is not known when he left. This boathouse was removed from Barren Island 14 December 1864. Nor is it known when the next identified keeper, Calvin H. Mott, who was appointed in 1856, left. Daniel Mott was appointed at the age of 56, with experience as a wrecker and surfman, on July 2, 1869, and left some time in 1877. In 1882, the station is referred to as Rockaway Beach; the name is shortened to Rockaway effective June 1, 1883. The next keeper was William H. Reinhart, who was appointed on January 29, 1878, was reassigned to Rocky Point station on October 23, 1896, and reassigned back to Rockaway on March 10, 1897; he retired on March 25, 1915, having accumulated 64 years in age and more than thirty years in service. Ira Hicks appears on the roles as acting keeper, but was never confirmed. Next came Joseph D. Meade, who was appointed February 25, 1917, and was reassigned to the Oak Island station November 28, 1923.
The station was extensively repaired and improved in 1888. In 1910 a plot was released to the Neponsit Realty Company of New York for a plot about one mile to the westward of the station as located at that time. The conveyance was rendered 10 August 1910. A contract was let in 1912 to "replace structures no longer suited to the needs of the service." In 1916, the building was removed to a new site." The station is listed as "discontinued as an active unit" in 1922 and carried as such until 1934, when it disappeared from the records. From this point forward, the Rockaway Point station was referred to as Rockaway. In 1942 the station was relocated from the ocean side of the Rockaway area to the projected inlet side, at the foot of Marine Parkway Bridge, about a mile away from the original site. Rockaway is one of the largest and busiest units of its type in the former Third Coast Guard District.
On 12 November 1978 a midnight raid on a fishing trailer moored at the Yancaribe Marina in Rockaway netted the biggest drug haul in Long Island history. Coast Guard, other Federal officials and local police seized the 65-foot Terry’s Dream along with four large trucks and two vans in the 12 November haul. Over 29 tons of Columbian marijuana were seized in the raid.
Sources:
Station History File, CG Historian’s Office
Dennis L. Noble & Michael S. Raynes. “Register of the Stations and Keepers of the U.S. Life-Saving Service.” Unpublished manuscript, compiled circa 1977, CG Historian’s Office collection.
Ralph Shanks, Wick York & Lisa Woo Shanks. The U.S. Life-Saving Service: Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard. Petaluma, CA: Costaño Books, 1996.
U.S. Treasury Department: Coast Guard. Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers and Cadets and Ships and Stations of the United States Coast Guard, July 1, 1941. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1941.