I was born in 1946 and from that year I grew up at Harveys Lake on Ash Street, near Hanson’s Park. We lived one block from the Pine Grove Hotel. The hotel would open every spring. The Lake came alive with people coming for the summer, renting cottages and camping. Traffic around the Lake, especially on weekends, was steady. After Labor Day, vacationing at the Lake came to an end and cottages closed the Lake became quiet again. There was very little if any traffic after Labor Day. Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s and even into the 70’s there were very few families that lived year round at the lake as we did. Fall was a beautiful time at the Lake. On a still morning the fall colors of the trees on the surrounding mountains reflected off the Lake. On the calm water just a few fishermen, trolling very...
Read moreI was born in 1946 and from that year I grew up at Harveys Lake on Ash Street, near Hanson’s Park. We lived one block from the Pine Grove Hotel. The hotel would open every spring. The Lake came alive with people coming for the summer, renting cottages and camping. Traffic around the Lake, especially on weekends, was steady. After Labor Day, vacationing at the Lake came to an end and cottages closed the Lake became quiet again. There was very little if any traffic after Labor Day.
Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s and even into the 70’s there were very few families that lived year round at the lake as we did.
Fall was a beautiful time at the Lake. On a still morning the fall colors of the trees on the surrounding mountains reflected off the Lake. On the calm water just a few fishermen, trolling very slowly for large lake trout, crisscrossed the Lake. We knew who they were because they trolled out there for years and told us the best fish stories I ever heard.
When the Lake would freeze over we would see what appeared to be villages of ice fishermen huts and at night it was amazing to see them all lit up. Ice needed to be cut around the docks creating moats to avoid damage from the ever expanding ice. During the winter months we would go sleigh riding down Pine Street across the Lake road down the dock steps, over the dock jumping the moat ( water surrounding the dock after the ice was cut) and out onto the ice. When we didn’t make the jump, we would retrieve our sleds from the water in the spring.
We ice skated a lot and we occasionally burned a tire and wood fire on the ice and stayed out for hours into the evenings. We also jumped the moats by skating as fast as we could to leap and grab onto the dock. There were times we didn’t make the jump and paid for it every time when our parents found out what we did. Although I don't hold the record for failed jumps, I went into the moat three times in my professional childhood moat jumping career…twice by skates… once by sled.
Spring would bring the first day of trout season and my friends and I along with thousands of fisherman would line the Lake shore and docks fishing for the daily limit of eight trout. My friends and I always got our limit.
Every summer since I was thirteen I worked at Hansons Park. Sweeping and general maintenance, running the kiddee rides, working the food concession stand and running the Tilt-o-whirl. I hated working this ride because people had a good tendency to get sick. This was the only Park ride that had a mop and a bucket of water on site. Mopping up after people in the summer heat was far from pleasant.
The scariest job, and by the way not a pleasant Lake memory, was the oiling of the Hanson’s Park roller coaster tracks every Sunday morning. Four of us would get into the first car, Joe Volley the foreman, another full time employee, me and another kid not much older than me. The other kid and I would stand in the first car holding glass quart bottles full of automobile oil. Just as we got to the top of the first dip, each of us would bend over the front of the car holding the oil bottles upside down a few inches over each of the coaster tracks. We were tightly held by our waists by the two men sitting behind us. In the two seconds it took for the coaster to speed down the first dip the bottles were empty. Each time I was glad that it was over and not once did I ever look forward to the next Sunday’s oiling of the tracks.
We knew the Wintersteens well. Mr. and Mrs. Wintersteen owned the Dodgem (bumper cars) and Merry-Go-Round Park rides. Their sons, Bob and Barry Wintersteen , my brother and I grew up together. Bob showed me how to grab three rings on one pass of the Merry-go Round giving a greater advantage to grab the coveted brass ring for a free ride. I was only allowed to do that on days when the Park wasn’t busy.
Water skiing, boating, quiet early mornings when the lake was so still it looked like glass, sunsets, fish jumping, skipping stones, swimming, jumping off the forty foot tower at Hansons Park beach and each winter with my friends nervously ice skating across the Lake at night are very vivid memories.
The great memories of the Park dances with Eddie Day and the Starfires is another subject left for another time.
I can write much more about wonderful people I knew when I was growing up including life saving summer heroics by some very courageous, anonymous people. But I will end this by saying this internet site obviously took me back to many memories that are important to me. Your site includes much historical content and lure that I know or I heard older people talk about when I was growing up.
Thank you for such a fine site.
