The Sphinx at Ye Ole Anchorage Inn

She Who Climbs to the Sphinx's Head, a Millionaire Will Surely Wed.

In the 1890s, Captain Billy Graham built a 20 foot replica of the great Egyptian sphinx on the lawn of his roadside inn called Ye Ole Anchorage Inn. He did this with hopes of attracting famous politicians and movie stars. His plan did work and it wasn't long before people such as Teddy Roosevelt and Mae West came to check it out. Mae West even offered to buy it. The Sphinx outlived the Anchorage which was abandoned in the early 1920s and burned down by arson in the late 1920s.

From Bygone Long Island.