and he did…. do everything. Where are men like Raymond G. Smith today?
Photographer/Electrician/Postmaster/Coastside Leader/Realtor…and so on.
Here’s a brief visual history of R. Guy Smith’s life.
There’s R. Guy Smith posing beside his Moss Beach home, still standing and still looking like the original gem that it was. That’s Smith’s automobile; he kept it in pristine shape as you can see in the other pictures below. He arrived in Moss Beach in the 1900s–his uncle was already there, selling real estate during the Ocean Shore Railroad era. R. Guy set up his electrical business in the building along Highway 1, recognizable today. Later it housed the Moss Beach Post Office, where R. Guy was the postmaster, famous for balancing accounts to the nearest penny.
At one time, the Moss Beach Post Office was also the place where you’d take out a book to read, a local lending library.
In the lower photo, I am sure the pile of bags contain photographic postcards, most scenic pictures of the Coastside, all shot by R. Guy Smith. Note the glass window: “Kodaks,” it says, I assume, referring to the film.
R. Guy set up the Moss Beach Coastside Chamber of Commerce which makes me think that the “Moss-Backs,” as the locals call themselves, intended to run the entire Coastside, that Moss Beach was the center of power, where major decisions were made. R. Guy championed an alternative route over Devil’s Slide, a tunnel, even. He intended that Moss Beach control the HMB Airport.
Today the “Moss-Backs” wonder why the Marine Reserve was not named the “R. Guy Smith Marine Reserve.”
