Twin Towers
Narragansett Bay, RI

In the early 1900's there was a pier and casino here in at Narragansett Bay. In the top picture the historical twin towers are still standing, which is the only thing left from days gone by. Below the twin towers is a very popular romantic restaurant called the Coast Guard House. It's crowded all summer long.

The twin towers was originally part of a much larger building. The Twin Towers were actually the grand entrance into the ballroom section of a casino. The main building of the Casino included stores that were rented out for income, dining rooms, cafes, parlors, a billard room, a reading room, and an assembly hall that was also used as a theatre and ballroom. So you can understand why this would attract the well-to-do, and become the summer tourist hotspot.

On Sept 12, 1900 a fire broke out in the Rockinham Hotel, north of the Narragansett towers and swept the whole area. It destroyed the Casino, and the only thing left was the towers.

The ruins were repaired in 1908-09, but remained vacant until 1924. The Depression of the 1930's kept the towers vacant and not until 1963 was a space rented for a snack bar in the lower East Tower. But tragedy struck again in 1965. The towers burned again.

The amazing thing is that the Towers also survived the Hurricane of 1938, New England's storm of the century. Sometimes called the "Long Island Express" because it rolled through there on the first day of autumn, the hurricane tore northward straight through the heart of New England, wreaking death and destruction with virtually no warning.

After the war, the remaining Narragansetts were forced to live on reservation lands, but by the end of the 18th century, the reservation lands had been drastically reduced. The state of Rhode Island "detribalized" the Narragansett during 1880-1884, which meant that they were no longer recognized as a tribe.

Over the years, the Narragansett tried to maintain their tribal customs and traditions, but it wasn't until the 1970s that they were able to reclaim part of their land and the 1980s before they received federal recognition as a tribe. It took decades, but the persistence of the Narragansett at getting back a part of what belonged to them finally paid off.