A 1912 post card printed in color pictures a cool water scene, with women in white summer dresses and men with their shirt sleeves rolled up, many in straw hats and all boating on the Swope Park lagoon. The boathouse with four corner turrets with American flags flying and a pillared front porch with deck chairs was a newly finished yellow painted wooden building located just east of the swinging bridge according to a Kansas City Star story of July 29, 1912. Joseph McGee of the Star Boat Company, which had the boat concession, reported the first patron on Sunday had promptly caught a good size fish. He also reported 10 rowboats, five canoes and a motorboat were on the lake available to rent. A motorboat ride around the lake, a distance of one mile, cost 10 cents. A rowboat could be rented for 25 cents an hour and a canoe for 35 cents. The old boathouse served for 37 years before costly upkeep and repairs made it necessary to build a new boathouse in 1949. Kansas City Star, July 17, 1976.
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