Region's year-round playground

Folks flock to area lakes on weekends for a little fun and some fishing

By Craig McEwen

The Forum - 05/09/1999

John West operated "The Lady of the Lakes," a wood-burning steamboat which, for 50 cents round trip, transported visitors to resorts and hotels located along the lakeshores.

After launching his stern-wheel passenger barge on Detroit Lake in 1886, John West envisioned that tourist-lined, "sand strewn" beaches would someday drive the local economy.

Indeed, that has proven true during the last 100 years - not only for Detroit Lakes, but a four-county area of western Minnesota that today thrives on tourism.

Summer visitors now flock to Detroit Lakes, quadrupling the city's 6,600-resident population. In 1997, the 25,000 to 30,000 tourists who visited the area daily spent $148 million, says Becker County Tourism Director Tim Ward.

One hundred years ago, Park Rapids was a small logging town. Today, the area population jumps from 15,000 to 45,000 each summer, says Chamber of Commerce director Sharon Rezac Andersen. Tourists seek out the area's amenities: Itasca State Park, the Heartland Recreational Trail, hundreds of lakes, resorts, campgrounds, motels and bread-and-breakfast lodges.

Within an hour of Fargo-Moorhead more than 200 resorts or vacation-type properties draw tourists from every state in the union, Ward says.

Tourism is big business in Becker, Otter Tail, Hubbard and Mahnomen counties where year-round events draw beachcombers, hunters, anglers, snowmobilers, bicyclists, skiers - all varieties of outdoor enthusiasts.

Earlier times

In 1937 Detroit Lakes proudly boasted that its lakes, beaches, fishing and hunting resources had attracted 32,000 summer tourists, causing the city's population to grow nine-fold.

At the forefront of this success was West, who, on his own initiative in 1888, straightened the crooked, weed-choked Pelican River and built a canal connecting five lakes - Big and Little Detroit, Sallie, Melissa and Pelican. On it he would operate "The Lady of the Lakes," a wood-burning steamboat which, for 50 cents round trip, transported visitors arriving by train from North Dakota, Canada and northern Minnesota to resorts and hotels located along the shores.

At the turn of the century, 16 trains and 12 river boats arrived daily at Shoreham, a summer resort community built along the channel separating lakes Sallie and Melissa, bringing tourists to attend summer concerts called chautauquas.

By 1918 the boat business had vanished as the two-day trip from Lake Melissa to Pelican Lake was significantly shortened by automobile.

Rustic cottages and small resorts began to dot shorelines on Becker County's 412 lakes, some of which today are built to capacity.

The Detroit Lakes Pavilion, on the shores of Big Detroit Lake, was dedicated in 1915, drawing bands and dance crowds into the 1960s.

A major annual attraction - the Northwest Water Carnival - made its Detroit Lakes debut in 1935, drawing thousands of spectators to the week-long event culminating with a huge parade and coronation ceremony.

A new era in lake living was unveiled in June 1938 when Bismarck, N.D., attorney Ed Cox built an "all weather" year-around home on Lake Melissa.

Resorts began advertising modern conveniences - gas, electricity and running water.

By 1948, 50,000 tourists were visiting Detroit Lakes during the summer months. Total building on area lakes was estimated at $1.5 million.

Today, some individual lake homes exceed that figure with others commanding prices in the $200,000 to $700,000 range.

Post-1950s changes

The city beach on Little Detroit Lakes was rebuilt in the 1960s and became a popular area for youth as evidenced by this July 4, 1987, photograph.

Lake property sales stalled during a 1958 recession. "We have many listings of summer homes but they are above $15,000 and people aren't buying," said property manager J.C. Hickman in a Forum story printed that summer.

But the resort industry was booming with 300 more inquiries filed with the Detroit Lakes Area Resort Association in 1958 than the previous year.

By 1963, some resort operators were opening their doors year-round, drawing snowmobilers, ice fishermen, hunters and skiers.

At Detroit Lakes, the city's main attraction - the beach-line that West saw hopes for - needed help. Its pristine beauty was being choked by erosion, silt, weeds and algae.

In 1965, the Detroit Lakes City Council voted to spend $250,000 to expand the beach to 3,800 feet, extending from Clem's Marina to Legion Beach. A 30-foot grass mall was planted, 17,000 yards of new sand installed and covered with 25,000 yards of bleached, sugar sand sucked from the bottom of Little Detroit Lake.

"It'll be a better beach than Waikiki," predicted Detroit Lakes Mayor Kent Freeman.

Maybe not quite, but since its completion in 1968 the beach has certainly become recognized as one of Minnesota's best and most popular.

A new era

Today, tourists want the comforts of home, Andersen says.

There are many more requests for amenities like color TV, hot tubs, and now the Internet. "Which are things you wouldn't have had 40 years ago," she says.

They prefer swimming pools over lakes. "Our young people today just don't want to swim in lakes," Andersen says. "And we've got some of the finest clear-water lakes in the state."

Not everyone wants access to water. Jeff Krueger proved that in 1982 with We Fest, a three-day annual country music festival held at Soo Pass Ranch near Detroit Lakes that draws upwards of 50,000 people daily most of whom pitch tents and park campers on the 6,500 campsites that the facility offers.

The most recent addition to the western Minnesota tourism industry has been the 1992 opening of the $22 million Shooting Star Casino and Lodge at Mahnomen, Minn.

In 1997, the operation run by the White Earth Indian Reservation Tribal Council posted gross revenues of $55 million and net revenues totaling $1.9 million.