8 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • NOVEMBER 2017 8 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 8 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
In 1955, the Quaker Oats Co.
paid $1,000 for a 19-acre chunk
of the Klondike and began
deeding it away, in squareinch
parcels, inside boxes of its
Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat
cereal.
The connection was Quaker
Oats’ sponsorship of the “Sgt.
Preston of the Yukon” radio
show, on which the dashing
Canadian Mountie and his
canine sidekick King would,
three times a week, “break the
trail in relentless pursuit of
lawbreakers.”
The property promotion
captured the imagination of
millions of young Americans,
and Quaker Oats and its hastily
formed subsidiary, the Great Klondike Big Inch
Land Co., struggled to keep up with demand.
The company would sell 21 million of the deedstuffed
The original Sound Beach Club House. (Courtesy of Sound Beach Civic Association)
boxes that year, with a total promotional
cost of less than $10,000.
Ka-ching. Eh.
Alas, actual ownership of the tiny properties
would prove to be more whimsy than legal
reality, and the Canadian government confiscated
the land in 1965 over an unpaid tax bill of
$37.20. The Great Klondike subsidiary folded the
following year, and all those inches are now part
of the local municipal golf course.
A fun story, no? But Long Island has an even
better one.
It begins in 1929, when New York City’s upstart
Daily Mirror newspaper acquired a stretch of
land along Long Island’s distant north shore
and began offering 20 X 100 lots to anyone who
would buy a yearlong subscription to the paper.
The land wasn’t free in this case – hey, this was
New York not the Klondike – but it was cheap:
$89.75 per lot, or $12.50 down and $3 a month.
The Mirror kicked in a community clubhouse,
parkland and 1.5 miles of waterfront and named
it all Sound Beach. It’s located in the Town of
Brookhaven, near Port Jefferson.
The earliest buyers were borough residents looking
to get out of the city’s sweltering summer
heat, and they arrived by the hundreds, pitching
tents and tarps, digging outhouse holes and the
start of future basements. In many cases, mothers
and children remained for the entire summer,
with dads schlepping into the City for the
work week, then back out to the beach on Friday
night, the car stuffed with fresh supplies.
In time, the cellar holes became summer
cottages, which were eventually winterized for
year-round use and expanded. Near the end of
the promotion, the Daily Mirror offered twofers
for the same price, giving buyers the chance to
double – or, for those who were flush, even quadruple
– their lot sizes.
The result, these many years later, is what may
be one of Long Island’s most diverse communities
in terms of housing stock. While you
can spend $800,000 and up to get views of the
Sound, homes valued at under $300,000 are
common and some go as low as the $150,000s
in today’s market. Rental homes run between
$1,500 and $2,000, meaning there’s opportunity
for millennials, first-home buyers, empty-nesters
and full-tilt families.
Today, almost 45 percent of households have
kids, and the median age of residents is 34,
significantly below the Island average. The
varied lot sizes and relative lack of commercial
thoroughfares – there are two – help the hamlet
preserve what residents say is its homey, friendly
character. Oh, and resident children attend
schools in neighboring hamlets, helping keep
property taxes under control.
I won’t kid you – it’s a beast of a commute if you
work on Wall Street, although I have a friend
who inherited the family bungalow in Sound
Beach and somehow manages. My daughter has
friends who live there as well, drawn by the affordable
rents and the hamlet’s
still-campy sensibilities.
Kinda cool.
As for the Great Klondike Big
Inch caper, not so much. Both
Quaker Oats and Canada are
weary, many, many times over,
of the letters that still arrive
from Inch owners concerning
their 6,272,640th of an acre,
including questions about exact
location, visitation policies
and possible mineral rights.
Silver lining: Original Great
Klondike Big Inch property
deeds are commonly available
on eBay, giving you the
opportunity to answer one of
the promotion’s most-enduring
mysteries: Which tasted better
with milk – the puffed rice or the paperwork?
* * *
Snap judgment: The Press is launching a monthly
photo essay in next month’s print edition and
we thought it might be fun for readers to take
part. As our professional photographers fan out
across the Island to illustrate the month’s subject,
“DRESS UP YOUR PET.” You can submit
your best pets photos and we’ll build a gallery
of the best photos for our print and online Long
Island Press..
But the world will get to see your work. Send
them to tbolger@longislandpress.com.
The contest ends Nov. 22, 2017.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
OPENING LINES
Searching for Circulation:
You may already be a winner
JOHN L. KOMINICKI
Executive Editor
