by Gerard Coulombe

Created on: July 27, 2009   Last Updated: July 28, 2009

Fairfield's two anchor subdivisions on its North/South axis along I-95 are the hamlets, if they can be called that, of Grasmere and Southport. And, indeed, they can be called hamlets because each can claim its own present, distinctive identity as well as an historical presence in the larger community. However, Southport has a great upper hand with its post office and own zip code: Southport CT 06890. It happens to have had its own stop on the Connecticut Metro line, just a blip out of Fairfield's stop.

The longest running story in Southport is the Pequot Library annual book sale, or tri-annual, but the biggest of all, the one that garners more publicity than at least one of Southport's most famous citizens is the annual sale that takes place in July of each year. It garners more column inches in the local press with a strong alignment of photos than any other event in this rather secluded and exclusive part of town. The one thing it doesn't have that other hamlets have along the Gold Coast tucked in along inlets and bridged little islands and private preserves is that it has no gates and no special police force patrolling, at least none with badges and special cars and things like that. No, none of that, Southport is a welcoming little community that is steeled in Revolutionary period history.

Southport has its own miniature downtown. It also had a wire company downtown and the harbor, almost downtown, was the jumping-most outlet for barreled globe onions grown on the slopes of Fairfield's hills. The onions were shipped aboard sloops and other vessels that could enter the busy harbor, but the lowly cutworm and the opening of the west brought an end to what hopes the region had to agriculture and the onion.

At one time, before Southport, there was Mill River Village, a sweet name for a series on the fall television line-up someday. There have been enough luminaries who have made and are currently making Southport their home to bring tour buses to Southport town on the rich and famous tour, but it would be too quick a tour to satisfy the outrageously curious. On second thought, any proposal for a tour would have to be on mini buses.

A big story of recent notoriety was the art lover who purchased a huge piece of metal, called a massive sculpture, and had a crane deposit in on his park-like lawn behind a manicured shrubbery fence. But after neighborly objections were noted, the crane returned, raised it, put it on a flatbed where it lay for a few days near the Grasmere end of town before it disappeared.

This region of Connecticut loves its privacy and none of the locals make residents of Southport any more special than they already are in their ways. People hereabouts pretty much mind their own business. Southport is not known for its restaurants. It has been known for a bar called, The Horseshoe Cafe. It's not as old as I am, but almost-not quite as famous as the Pequot Library, but almost.

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