Minne-Wonka Beach - Beaver Dam, WI Sponsored & Built by Beaver Dam Kiwanis Club Photo: Dodge County Historical Society
MINNE-WONKA
Lights were added and the beach remained open 24-7 during a very hot and dry summer. Fundraisers were held periodically to help retire the debt. Sand and trees were added later, and by the time it was largely completed, the community had about $25,000 invested, a princely sum for the time THE CRYSTAL LAKE STORY and about equal to what was spent to build the Williams Free Library. A contest was held to name the newly developed beach; the winning entry penned by one Marguerite Dunlap, a student at Hillcrest School. JACK HANKES Her submission was Minne Wonka or place of happiness and contentment istorians and visionaries differ primarily in the direction of their gaze beside the waters (coincidentally a suitable depiction of this writer’s golf and the degree of certainty surrounding their work. Historians work experience - save the happiness and contentment parts). with facts (or they should), while visionaries massage ideas; so this is a For the next eleven years the Kiwanis Club and others continued history about some local visionaries. to make improvements at the beach and raise additional funds to retire In about 1846, David Drake established both a sawmill and a gristthe debt. In 1942, the American Legion contributed a final amount sufmill on the site of what is now Crystal Lake, cleverly naming it Drake’s ficient to pay off the debt. Having then grown to some 43 acres, it was Mill. Records imply that it was located south of what is now Highway 33. deeded to the City of Beaver Dam on January 6, 1942, the same day Drake’s Mill was a flourishing business for a number of years, at least to President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a State of the Union address in the extent one could flourish in the grist business in those days. which he proposed massive spending to battle the nation’s deepening eco Dr. George Swan bought property on the east edge of the pond nomic depression. in 1889, establishing a resort, which he named Crystal Lake. The resort Use of the beach and bathhouse was free to children, and the included a pavilion, walking trails, refreshment stands and good fishing, the work of many area citizens and organizations made that possible. Twentylatter no doubt a stocked contrivance to attract guests. Men were certainly seven more years passed without major improvements, and in 1969, the drawn to women who appeared to enjoy fishing, and those equipped with City of Beaver Dam invested in some major improvements to the facilities, a boat were no doubt the most attractive. including a new beach house, parking lot lights and landscaping. The resort did well for several decades. Over time local demand My siblings and I learned to swim at that beach, spending many grew for a community swimming pool. Early in 1930 the Beaver Dam an early June morning with a cohort of similarly skinny rascals, feigning a Kiwanis Club, then four years old, began gathering support for a pool talent for swimming and wondering if the water would ever warm up. We from area individuals, businesses and organizations. Support was sufficient did note, albeit discreetly, that the instructor wore a sweatshirt or two and for the Kiwanis Club to take an drank hot coffee from her perch on Crystal Lake Beach - 1931 Photo: Dodge County Historical Society option on 18 acres and later form the pier. Ah, back in the day. the Crystal Lake Recreation Com Importantly, this story isn’t pany, its principal members includabout a beach. It’s much bigger than ing E.C. Dowe, C.A. Starkweather, that. It’s about the power of vision A.A.Volkman, L.E.Martin, Cecil and an ability to marshal forces to White, A.H.Luedke and Edward Jamake good things happen. It’s about cobs. In August they exercised the understanding that when it comes to option and bought the land from community, the whole can be greater the Crystal Lake Ice Company for than the sum of its parts. It’s about $5,250 or roughly $69,000 today. believing in the possible rather than During the depression, fretting the seemingly impossible. In labor was readily available, thus the midst of the Great Depression, a number of area unemployed big thinkers stood up and made very worked to develop the beach area good things happen. That thinking in the spring of 1931, opening on got us here, and similar thinking June 21. will shape our future.
H
22