Short Beach was once a thriving shoreline vacation village that became almost a completely year-round neighborhood starting in the late 1950s.

Short Beach is home to half of the famous Shore Line Trolley Museum, which is also in neighboring East Haven.

Short Beach was occupied by the Quinnipiac and possibly the Paugussett tribes in the 17th century but this information is still disputed.

From 1891 until she died in 1919, poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox lived on the Short Beach coast overlooking Granite Bay.

[2] Wilcox was influential in promoting the area, and its growth was assured when the Branford Electric Railway ran its line near Short Beach in 1897.