Established in 1895, the Erie Yacht Club, is a private club located on the shore of Presque Isle Bay in Erie, Pennsylvania. The purpose of the Erie Yacht Club is to maintain, develop, and enlarge the facilities for yachting and boating, to encourage and develop yachting and other aquatic sports, to promote social recreational activities. To improve yachting and boating facilities at the Erie Yacht Club basin and in the area of the Erie Harbor generally.
Early history
On September 14, 1894, George T. Bliss, who served as Erie Yacht Club's Commodore from 1895 to 1903 and again from 1908 to 1910, sent out about fifty circulars, information forms and return envelopes to interested parties concerning, "a boating club in Erie that will take all kinds of boats."
His broadside calling for the founding of a club included his proposition that the club would have to have a clubhouse plus a low building to keep sculls, small boat, and equipment. There were many interested "Erieites" among the first to respond, so much so, that a second circular was sent out on September 20, 1894, calling for a meeting on September 20, 1894.
The organizational meeting was held in the Writing Room of the Reed House on North Park Row. The initial meeting was well attended. Forty-eight were on hand and seventeen names were sent in to the proper committee, so the organization started off with practically 65 names on the roll. While the name did not survive, Bliss originally proposed that the club be called the Keystone Yacht Club.
By October, 137 individuals had applied for membership. The first regular meeting was scheduled for November 14 at the Reed house. It was announced that "no charter member will have a vote unless he has paid at least $5 of the initiation, which is $15." All persons becoming members after January 1, 1895, were to be "charged $20 initiation fee and $5 semi-annual dues."
At this point it was time to fish or cut bait. In his May 1896, article in The Rudder, Bliss laconically noted that: "Meetings were held that were well attended until money was suggested. We couldn't get a corporal's guard together for weeks. But we kept at it, and finally on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1894, the organization was effected." The first officers elected to serve the club were George T. Bliss (Commodore), George Berriman (Vice Commodore), C.C. Wicks (Rear Commodore), E.B. Lynch (Secretary) and Walter Reitzel, (Treasurer). The first members elected to the board of directors were: George Pratt, Charles H. Strong, William Nick, W. Boyd Hays, William P. Atkinson and W. J. Robertson.
The first order of business was to select a site for the new club. The City of Erie leased water lots to the Club at the foot of Myrtle Street, east of what is now the Erie Water Authority Building. After several months of work on the bidding process and construction the Erie Yacht Club's first building was dedicated on July 18, 1895. It was a beautiful two-story building with outdoor decks on the north and west side. Considerations given the ladies were a special entrance so that "they do not have to pass through the house," and the prohibition of liquor. As Bliss wrote in The Rudder: "We allow no liquor to be used or partaken of on or about the premises. This does not prohibit its being left at the club for boat owners, and being taken aboard the boats. We adopted this last rule as an experiment, and it works to perfection."
The fleet at the new anchorage included: Mystic, and three other small steamers, four naptha launches, three large center board sloops, four schooners, three yawls, three small sloops, two canoes, two shells and an eight oared shell. One of the latter was the Miriam, M, built and owned by W.L. Morrison, one of the club's members who achieved considerable boating fame. The Miriam's anchor is displayed in the traffic circle near our present club's entrance.
By the turn of the century, things began to change. The gasoline engine was powering launches previously driven by naphtha. Mostly crude two-cylinder affairs, they were temperamental and had a decided influence in changing the vocabulary of owners. For Club members, "gasoline was delivered in five gallon cans from wagons at ten cents a gallon and no tax."
Gasoline also led people away from the water. Judge Emory A. Walling was to note that there were many who were attracted "to the modern craze for bicycles and automobiles." The Club directors did everything possible to counteract this trend. They got a permit from the Coast Guard "to pull yachts out" in the winter at Crystal Point on Misery Bay where the Perry Monument was later built.
In addition, social events were established. The Club archives record one member's observation that in 1900, the Club "had a social urge and rented Tracy's Point", a hotel built on the site of the present Erie Water Authority Sommerheim Pumping Station. Erie Yacht Club Station No. 1, as it was known, was the focus of many social events for members and their families. Transportation was by bus, trolley car or by the motor launch, Dandy of Erie, which was termed by Bliss, "a little dude of a steam launch." The docks were repaired and the buildings painted, and the refurbished country club "became a very popular rendezvous." It burned in the winter of 1901–1902, although not all members mourned the loss. One chronicler wrote: "It was not a fundamental success and fortunately the building burned before the members drank themselves to death."
However, the short life of Station No. 1 pointed out the need for a larger facility. The Anchorage, as the Clubhouse at the foot of Myrtle Street was known, had become too small for the club's needs, and plans were begun to replace it with something larger. The need became more critical as the newspapers reported that the Water Supply Commission was going to reclaim the water lots used by the club to expand the Water Works.
New Location In 1917, Commodore Henri G. Chatain negotiated with Mr. J. A. Root, president of the Kahkwa Park Realty Company, Inc., for the last remaining property on the waterfront. In a letter dated March 21, 1917, Root proposed to donate the land "west of the ravine and below the cliff" in Kahkwa Parkto the Erie Yacht Club. In return, the club was to pay $5,000 towards the road work and maintain the walls and the slope of the ravine without "marring the natural beauty of the surrounding lands."
With the land secured and permission granted from the Water Supply Commission of Pennsylvania "to construct a dock, retaining wall and fill" on the south shore of Presque Isle Bay, construction began. The location posed difficulties from the beginning. The beach area was made marshy by a stream which ran down the ravine. Until the creek was controlled, no road could be built, and it was necessary to lower materials by block and tackle.
Construction was made more difficult by the breach at the neck of Presque Isle (which remained open until 1920) and the United States' declaration of war on April 6, 1917. However, "the original clubhouse was torn down and E.H. Scott used his yacht, Roamer, to tow much of the lumber to the new location." Commodore Chatain headed a work crew which built the first road down the hill, while a temporary Clubhouse was built by Herman Lund with the help of a number of members at the south end of the newly constructed west dock. Still in use, the Canoe House now houses the office of the Dockmaster. The members constructed a stiff-legged derrick permitting launching and retrieval of their boats.
However, a proper Clubhouse awaited construction. Plans and specifications for a three-story building "to be done in a first-class, neat and workman-like manner" were drawn up by architect Clement S. Kirby. Kirchner Brothers submitted the winning bid for construction at $17,000, and Oscar Nick won the plumbing contract. Although they had initial problems securing payment, eventually both were paid.
The season of 1919 began under difficulties, with access to the club almost barred by muddy roads, the grounds themselves a veritable mud hole, and buildings still under construction. In spite of the open Winter and Spring, boat owners were laggard about getting their craft into the water, and the confusion and disorder of construction work made itself felt until well into the season.
But finally, buildings were finished, moorings installed, docks and piers constructed, grounds graded, drained, and seeded, driveway parking spaces paved and walks laid out. The marine railway was constructed, tennis courts built, a club spar erected, and later a locker house [still extant] built upon a flooring laid down as a temporary dancing pavilion. Lights, signs, screens and a hundred other refining details followed in their place, and the club was finally in shape barely in time for the formal opening on August 22, 1919.
On September 30, Commodore E.H. Scott and the membership closed the season with "a monster clambake", confident in their preparations for hosting the I.L.Y.A. Regatta in 1920. Less than one month later (October 28), the United States embarked upon a novel - and ultimately unsuccessful - experiment known as Prohibition. As long-time Club secretary and historian George O. Loesel wrote: "Prohibition reared its ugly head . . . and Mr. Booze was no longer the money maker [and] thus considerable revenue was denied the club."
The "Roaring Twenties", replete with gambling, prostitution, rum-running (a profitable alternative enterprise) and bootlegging "bath-tub gin", had enormous impact. John G. Carney in his, Highlights of Erie Politics, said that the "only dry thing in Erie was the inside of a light bulb." However, the Erie Yacht Club, like the rest of the country was officially dry.
The country club atmosphere of the new facility led to a broader membership base and activities. The Club went beyond the "manly sports" of sailing, power boat racing, ice boating, fishing and hunting, and placed recreation in a broader context. Ice skating, tobogganing, quoits, ground bowling, tennis and beach golf were available to members and their families. The new facility had a restaurant and an outdoor grill, a trap-shooting range, quoit grounds, two tennis courts and areas set aside for ground bowling and beach golf. Card parties and regularly scheduled bridge sessions, dances and Saturday night parties and dances became regular features of the club.
Hard Times The good times ended in 1929. Winter storms ravaged Presque Isle and the bay shore, and October was to bring the stock market crash inaugurating the Great Depression. One writer recalled:
We have had some bad storms but none to compare with the one in 1929, which broke up our docks and front porch and carried them down the bay. A large gasoline tank in the ground broke free and was destroyed. This tragedy came close to finishing the club, for it was the year of the "Big Depression" and both members and money were scarce. Commodore Lawrence M. Nagle determined that the club should be saved and proceeded to purchase at his own expense all of the large planks from the Old Boston Store which was being dismantled. These were brought to the club, and Jerry Johnson and Joe Meisel were hired to rebuild [the] porch and docks. Mr. Nagle also paid these men, since there was no money in the Club treasury.
The membership roster was severely reduced, and "members dropped like flies." At the Annual Meeting of 1932, membership and morale were so low that only 12 people showed up. They met in the upstairs Dining Room, where there was a fireplace, so that they would not have to fire up the boiler.