Higgins Beach is a small beach located in the state of Maine in the United States. It is located in the town of Scarborough in Cumberland County. The beach is north of Prouts Neck and Old Orchard Beach and south of Crescent Beach State Park.
This northeast-southwest trending beach measures approximately 0.6 miles (1.0 km) and is approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of Portland and 110 miles (177 km) north of Boston. It lies between bedrocks at the southwest, sometimes known as Thunder Cove, and the Spurwink River on the northeastern end. This small seaside community has about 300 cottages. In addition, the community has two inns (The Breakers and the Higgins Beach Inn) which are open during the summer season.
Higgins Beach is most known for its family-oriented oceanside neighborhood, striped bass fishing, the beach's quaintness, the shipwreck embedded in the beach's sands, and surfing.
The beach has had public access for as long as the town has record, but with very little public parking. In 2010, the town of Scarborough purchased a small parking lot accommodating approximately 75 vehicles. Higgins Beach has managed to retain its small-town characteristics, something that larger beaches in the area such as Old Orchard have lost in return for commercialization and tourism. This beach, by contrast, survives on the small number of families who have returned year after year for decades. Some of its current residents began coming to Higgins Beach in this way.
Famous quotes containing the words higgins and/or beach:
“Politics is a choice of enemas. You’re gonna get it up the ass, no matter what you do.”
—George V. Higgins (b. 1939)
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)