It was 1925, and Patrick Kane was attending to new business pursuits, including starting a new real estate business in Holyoke. The operation of the Rocky Point Beach area shifted to George H. Berry of 102 Brown Avenue. Mr. Berry renamed the swimming area as Wayside Beach.
George Harold Berry was born in Westerly, Rhode Island, on March 2, 1893. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was the manager of the Bijou Theater on Main Street, and later, in the 1940s, of the Globe Theater on Suffolk Street. In addition, he was the one-time manager of the Valley Arena and owned his own furniture store.
Wayside Beach had athletic fields for baseball, softball and volleyball, camp sites, dining and entertainment area.
The beach opened for the 1925 season in early June. The first advertisements indicated that the operation was under new management and featured new facilities, including a bathhouse, dance hall and picnic grove. The dance hall featured live music on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8 to 11 P. M. The 4th of July holiday would feature the Arcadia Club Orchestra and the Bay State Orchestra. There were shop picnics held during the season, one of which was from the Dickinson paper Mill.
Camps were advertised for rent at $100 for the 2026 season. There was a controversy in 1926 when the Boston and Maine Railroad levied a $2,700 fee on the camp owners to fund the construction of a railroad safety signal. In the end, the railroad was successful.
In 1931, a large fire destroyed the men’s and women’s lockers and storage building at Wayside Beach. A great number of supplies used on the playing fields, bathing suits, towels and baskets were destroyed. Mr. Berry only carried partial insurance on the items lost.
The business was transferred to new ownership in 1932; however, the Wayside Beach name continued into the 1950s. The next Rocky Point installment follows the story of Michael O’Hare and O’Hare’s Grove.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
World War I and II Draft Registration Cards
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