Maine Family Celebrates 100 Years of Operating Campground
Norm Davidson and wife, Candy, and their sons, Brien, left, and Mark at a picnic table at their three-generation owned and operated Libby’s Oceanside Campground in York, Maine. The campground is 100 years old.
The campsites overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the distant Nubble Lighthouse have been a privilege to guests at Libby’s Oceanside Campground in York, Maine, for a century now, according to seacoastonline.com.
First, the campers came with tents packed in their Ford Model Ts. Then, they came in RVs rolling into the campground dozens at a time on turnover day. Today, they still come year after year, filling the 83 campsites at Libby’s at 725 York St., just south of Long Sands Beach.
Norm Davidson, grandson of Fred Libby who opened the campground in 1923, will tell you he’s planning to retire, according to his sons Mark and Brien. He and his wife, Candy, are not finished yet, though, as they prepare to welcome generations of vacationers back for another season at Libby’s.
“I haven’t been here 100 years,” Candy Davidson joked. “On days it feels like it.”
How Libby’s Campground came to be at York Beach
When Norm Davidson’s grandfather Fred Libby came to York in the early 1920s, he had been working as a steamfitter out of the Boston area, according to Davidson. He set up a workshop in York Harbor underneath the old post office, and in 1923 he decided to buy the three-and-a-half-acre oceanfront property, as well as another six acres to the south.
Libby originally had a grander vision for the land than a campground, according to the Davidsons, and intended to build a motel, saltwater swimming pool and gas station. In the meantime, he had people looking to put up tents and stay by the oceanside, and so he charged them for the use, his family said.
Source: https://rvbusiness.com/maine-family-celebrates-100-years-of-operating-campground/
