This aerial view shows the roller coaster and fun house at Excelsior Amusement Park, on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. The amusement park was built in 1926.
This often created card shows a fisherman with a hypothetical catch of many fish, including Northern, Walleye and Bass. This card is labeled Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, postmarked 1909.
Wooden boats are pulled ashore and picnic baskets appear in this generic beach scene, with a black and white inset photo labeled Steamer Excelsior, Minnetonka. The writer mentions the large number of advertisements in the paper for fine horses for sale. The Bureau of Engraving's logos is printed on back, color added, postmarked 1910.
Entrance to Big Island Park shows the path through the grove of trees. Message says this pleasure park is 18 miles out by trolley, and that the tower, peristyle, etc., are all concrete, dated and postmarked 1909.
Visitors enjoy the shade in a grove of trees at Big Island Park, color added. Card is addressed to Hoke Smith, United States Senate, Washington, D.C., postmarked 1913. Message reads: Lithography is the working man's art. Don???t destroy American Art! Help us develop American art! Why not lithograph these in Amerika? More of these cards than ever are being lithographed abroad! I receive 25 dolls per week as a lithographer. Please don't cut this down. German lithographers get only one third of the wages Americans do.
Visitors to Big Island Park arrive and depart on steamboats such as the Saint Paul. Message describes white water lilies and mosquitoes, color added, postmarked 1909.
Two boats are at the Veterans Camp dock on Big Island. Message mentions cooking enough apples to get two quarts and one pint of lovely apple sauce for winter use, postmarked Excelsior, 1938.
This generic photo advertises the good old summer time on Lake Minnetonka. The colorized, wooded scene includes tents, a woman sitting on a hammock, and a fellow fishing from shore, postmarked 1910.
Collage of Minneapolis photographs includes Regatta Day on Lake Minnetonka, Court House and City Hall, Boulevard at Lake Calhoun, Loring Park, St. Louis Bay on Lake Minnetonka, Library at State University, Flour Mill District, Minnehaha Falls, and St. Anthony Falls and Exposition Building, dated 1906.
This interview view of the Excelsior Amusement Park convention and picnic auditorium shows the curved roof of the room and a gathering, some people seated at benches and some at picnic tables. The printed message describes the park as "the family playground that's clean and wholesome. Ideal for church and school picnics."
This photo of the convention grounds on the Burton Estate in Deephaven on Lake Minnetonka in encircled by an oval with the saying "Minneapolis Makes Good." The message, postmarked 1908, tells of the purchase of a swell hat with a great big plume for $8.00.
Several cottages, identical in design with a screened front porch and a name above the door, one called "Vista del Laco" and one called "El Casa," on a path bordered by flowering bushes.
The Degree of Honor Summer Camp was located on Casco Point in Orono on Lake Minnetonka. Some of the women are dressed for swimming, and the men are in boats at the dock, postmarked 1930.
The Degree of Honor Summer Camp's recreation hall floor is marked with lines for games. There is a stage at the far end of the room, a piano, and plenty of wicker and wooden chairs.
Charming boathouse in the foreground of this photo of the Hotel St. Louis in the distance, on a hill overlooking Lake Minnetonka, postmarked and dated 1905.
Smoke pours from the smokestack of a dredging boat in Lake Minnetonka. The roller coaster at Excelsior Amusement Park is visible on the right side of the image.
Panoramic view of dredging boats in Lake Minnetonka with the roller coaster and boathouse visible in the background on the right side of the photograph.