Oh! The Places I've Been - "Q" is for QUONOCHONTAUG

Were you wondering what I'd come up with for the letter Q? Perhaps you were thinking Quebec Canada, Quincy Massachusetts, Queens New York. Yep, been to those places. Queensland Australia, Quimper France, Qatar? Nope, not yet. I chose Quonochontaug Rhode Island as my pick today.Quonochontaug is actually an area composed of three small beach communities in Charlestown. Located between two salt ponds - Ninigret Pond and Quonochontaug, or "Quonnie" Pond - and their respective barrier beaches, the communities of West Beach, Central Beach, and East Beach house several hundred residents, some year-round, others summer only. Today, many houses are available as summer rentals. In the 19th century, Quonochontaug was a busy and fashionable resort of small hotels and boarding houses, and the popularity of the resort continued up until the Great Hurricane of 1938.Quonochontaug used to be the site of an iron mining operation financed by Thomas A. Edison in the 1880s. Iron particles existed in the form of black sand on the beach and they could be separated out with magnets and melted to produce iron. The venture failed after cheaper iron was later discovered.There are vacation rentals available in quiet Quonochontaug. Now, I don't know these people, but you could rent an old-fashioned beach cottage (click to see). Isn't it pretty?