Two great green spaces fixed that summer character in place. Rocky Neck State Park spreads more than seven hundred acres along the Sound, with a wide sandy beach, a tidal salt marsh, and a landmark stone-and-timber pavilion built by WPA and CCC crews in the 1930s — one of the finest pieces of public architecture on the Connecticut shore. Inland, Nehantic State Forest, set aside in 1925, was the first state forest in New London County. And along the water in Niantic, the mile-long Niantic Bay Boardwalk, opened in 2005, traces the shore past the old railroad line, with the Sound on one side and the bay on the other.
The Nehantic were here first, with fishing and hunting grounds along the shore, and they allied with the colonists during the Pequot conflict of 1636. English families began settling in the 1640s as part of Lyme and New London; the area became the West Parish of Lyme in 1719, and in 1839 it broke away to incorporate as its own town — East Lyme, carved from parts of Lyme and Waterford. One local legend predates all of it: the Bride Brook marriage of 1646, said to have been performed across a frozen brook that marked a colonial boundary, so the ceremony could satisfy two jurisdictions at once.
Why People Visit East Lyme
East Lyme rewards visitors who want the Connecticut shoreline at its most easygoing — a sandy state-park beach, a waterfront boardwalk, and a village built on the bay. People come for Rocky Neck and the Niantic Bay Boardwalk, for the colonial Thomas Lee House, and for a simple, scenic shoreline day where beach-cottage summers and quiet New England history sit a short walk apart.
