Walker's Cabins

The 1950s were a clean and conservative decade throughout the United States. But there were still scandals to be found "' even in Darien.

Walker's Cabins was a group of 25 one-room cabins, located on the side of the Post Road. The steam-heated stop-over spots served tourists and travelers passing through the town.

"They were near the Norwalk city line, and they did have a seedy reputation," said Ed Chrostowski, a columnist for the Darien News, and former editor of the Darien Review.

They were owned by James W. Walker, who "always said that his place might not have been the Waldorf, but you could get practically the same service at considerably lower rates," according to an article in The Sunday Herald, published in August, 1955.

According to the article, Walker decided to quit the lodging business that month, after being charged for running the business without a permit. The judge who heard Walker's case, Town Court Judge Paul Macdonald, cited "many criminal matters" that were brought to the court's attention over the years. "The testimony was often such it could not be made public," Macdonald said, according to the article.

The Herald article describes the cabins as "scene of some of the most famous rendezvous in Fairfield County history," which "is going out of the Post Rd. tourist business, and nobody could be more relieved than police and officials of the silk-stocking town."

"In that era, it was before drugs, so it was not a drug dealing thing," Chrostowski said. "It was mostly prostitution probably, or maybe just legitimate couple, people stopping for one-nighters."