On the night of January 19, 1936, Trooper Clark C. Lewis was driving back to the Montauk Point Barracks through a snowstorm after checking on the security of Hither Hills State Park. His 1933 Chevrolet open touring car left Route 27 near the village of Montauk and overturned, and Lewis was killed. He had served eleven years with the New York State Police.

Ninety years later, the spot where Long Island runs out of land carries his name. The New York State Police dedicated the Montauk Point East Overlook in honor of Trooper Lewis at a ceremony held Friday morning at 11:30 at the overlook, hosted by Troop L, the troop that covers Long Island. State Police leadership and members attended along with elected officials, according to the State Police announcement. The dedication had originally been scheduled for October 16 and was postponed a week.

A trooper of the earliest years

Lewis belonged to the first generation of the State Police, which was founded in 1917. He was a veteran of the New York National Guard and the United States Navy before joining the force, and his State Police career took him through Troops D, B and G. In Troop G he rode with the unit's Rough Riders, the mounted drill team of the force's early horseback era.

He was later assigned to the Troop K Parkway Detail, the unit patrolling the parkways then spreading across Long Island, and that detail was reclassified as Troop L while he served in it. By 1936 he was stationed at the Montauk Point Barracks, the easternmost post in the state, which is how a trooper came to be checking a state park on the South Fork in the middle of a January snowstorm.

The overlook

The Montauk Point East Overlook sits along Route 27 near the point, on the same stretch of highway where Lewis lost his life. It is a pull-off thousands of visitors use every year for the view of the Atlantic and the Montauk Point Light, and it now stands as a memorial to a trooper whose death had gone without a public marker for nine decades.

Troop L is headquartered in East Farmingdale and patrols Nassau and Suffolk counties. Lewis is remembered on the force's honor roll of members who died in the line of duty, and his biography is kept by the New York State Troopers Memorial Fund, which maintains the records of the force's fallen members.

Anyone driving Route 27 to the lighthouse can stop at the overlook on the eastbound side approaching Montauk Point State Park. The view has not changed much since 1936. What has changed is that the trooper who patrolled it is no longer anonymous there.

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