Saltaire villagers packed the library early last month to partake in a rare feat: they gathered to share memories of an era when the youth group was run like boot camp, the threat of a highway paving over Fire Island was still real and everything seemed simpler, if not better. It was the unofficial Saltaire centennial, timed to coincide with one of the longstanding local traditions, the boardwalk sale.

It was 1911. President William Howard Taft was in the White House. A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan killed 146 people. And developers had realized the draw of building bungalows with oceanfront views—although bulldozing the dunes and a massive seaside boardwalk proved failed experiments once the 1938 hurricane tore through the village.

"I thought it was kind of silly there wasn't an official centennial," said Jim O'Hare, who runs Saltaire38.blogspot.com, a website where Saltairians share stories and photos from bygone days. What started as a hobby turned him into a local historian who is now exhibiting old pictures, newspaper clippings and written accounts from way back when in the first exhibit featured at the village library since it was renovated this summer.

But there is some question as to when the centenary actually is.

News columnist Hugh O'Brien, a longtime Saltaire village trustee who ran on the Centennial Party line because his roots here go back a century, said the argument could be made for 2010 having been the centennial, since that's when the developers first filed their plans to build Saltaire.

"You can take your pick about what constitutes a centennial in Saltaire," he said.

Another date is 2017, or 100 years since the village was incorporated. Whether village officials will mark that occasion or leave it to the residents to do for themselves again remains to be seen.

The stories live on regardless. Like how Robert Moses, the still controversial "master planner" who built many New York highways, parks and bridges, had summered in Saltaire with his family before proposing to extend Ocean Parkway onto the beach. Or how Captain Baldwin, who lived in a shack on the banks of Clam Cove, is said to have bumped off his rival and continues to haunt those who disturb his old home.

Best of all is the ability for such an occasion to bring the community together and retell the local lore before it's forgotten, gone forever.

"Remembered stories and oral histories are greater than photographic images," said O'Hare. "Forget about the phrase 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' A good picture is like the face of Helen of Troy: it can launch a thousand stories."