Horseneck Beach State Reservation is a public recreation area comprising more than on the Atlantic Ocean in the southern portion of the town of Westport, Massachusetts. The reservation is one of the state’s "most popular facilities... welcom hundreds of thousands of visitors per year." It is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.DescriptionThe reservation occupies a peninsula that juts out from Westport's mainland with Rhode Island Sound to the southwest and Buzzards Bay to the southeast. The reservation features of barrier beach, marshland, and a protected estuary habitat. Most of the marshland is concentrated at the northern portion of the peninsula bordering Horseneck Channel and The Let. The barrier island known as Gooseberry Neck (or Gooseberry Island) is connected by a causeway to the main peninsula and is the southernmost extension of Horseneck Beach State Reservation. It partially divides Rhode Island Sound from Buzzards Bay.HistoryThe name of the beach is believed to derive from the Algonquin word hassanegk, meaning "a house made of stone." Summer homes were built in the area after a bridge connected the beach to Westport Point in 1893. After all were destroyed by hurricanes in 1938 and 1954, the state acquired Horseneck Beach in 1956. Gooseberry Neck was added to the state's holdings in 1957.
