Pay Beach
Lake Wissota is a large body of water which was the result of
a dam being constructed on the Chippewa River just east of
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The idea was to build a dam and
flood farmland to form a lake. The dam was constructed in
1917 and the lake was filled with water in 1918. The name
of the lake was derived from a combination of the Wisconsin
and Minnesota power companies.
Nearly everyone in Chippewa County and many in Eau
Claire and Baron Counties knew of the Wissota Beach
Resort. It was known by the locals as the “pay beach”
because you had to pay an entrance fee to swim. Both before
and after the war it was the place to go during the summer. I
don’t remember when Ernie Cote purchased the land to build
the pay beach or even how many acres it was. The resort was
possibly built around 1929-1931. It had two major
attractions. There were the daily activities which had two
parts and the weekly activities but first some history.
The first three tiny red and white one room plus bathroom
cabins just north of the main house and swimming facilities
were built first. Then the fourth white “flat top” cabin on the
same side of the road was constructed as a restaurant down
by the beach. However there was too much work for the
income received and it was converted into a larger cabin.
This was our first home immediately after being married. The
three log cabins built from real logs and cement came next.
Then the two white cabins east of the logs and finally the
Swenson’s at the end of the line to the west of the logs. All of
the cabins were cleaned on Saturday afternoon. The prior
week renters had to be out by noon and the next week renters
were allowed in late Saturday afternoon. The crew had a
small yellow Crosley for cabin cleaning. It looked like a
small mini-van of today.
Actually there was one more across the west road up the hill
but not until later. After our first child was born Ernie sliced
off a lot on the far west of the property for our first house.
More about that in the story First Real Home.
Most all of the summer, one or occasionally two week rentals
were families from either Milwaukee or Chicago. There was
one important exception. That was the family from Akron,
Ohio, who for a very long time stayed five weeks or so in the
farthest cabin to the west. Eventually this cabin took on their
family name just like Claudeys, flat top, brown bottom, etc.
This cabin became known as Swensons.
The second major attraction was the water activities. This
was both underwater and above water fun. A bath house for
changing clothes was built between the concession stand and
the lake. There was a turnstile that rotated one way. The
admission fee to swim was ten cents. There were baskets for
clothes to be checked for an extra five cents. The same
building where you paid the entrance fee and checked your
clothes sold concessions. Root beer floats was the favorite
item.
Selling lots of root beer means the need for lots of carbonated
water. Ernie built a contraption to make his own carbonated
water in the concession stand. He used a long round fifteen
gallon tank mounted on a wooden cradle. The tank was filled
2/3 full with water and pressurized with compressed air from
another tank. The tank was then rocked lengthwise using his
foot, sloshing the water end to end. After some rocking,
more water was added and more rocking. After thirty
minutes the water was then piped through a metal coil
submerged in a bath of ice water.
Ernie had a unique concept of water safety. The 100+ foot
long swimming dock did not extend to the shore. People
needed to walk out into the water to a depth of an adults
knees to climb on to the dock. That way younger children
who could not swim and bicycles were not on the dock at all.
There were two diving boards on the deep water end of the
dock. The low dive was about four feet off the water. The
high dive was about six feet higher than that.
The highlight of the attractions at least for the younger crowd
was the water slide. It was roughly 30 feet high over by the
boat launch area. People would walk up stairs with a wooden
platform with wheels. After riding the cart to the bottom it
would glide over the water surface a long distance out into
the lake. You would swim to shore and start all over again. It
was taken down in the early fifties due to the increasing
insurance costs even though there had been no accidents.
When I was small I was the parking attendant. On weekends
there were huge numbers of cars and if parking was left to the
drivers, only half as many cars could be accommodated. As I
got older I worked at beach concession stand mainly
scooping ice cream. I continued this some even after we were
married. After we were married we also bought a Chris Craft
boat and I sold tickets for rides on the small lake.
Mother and Ernie’s house was right on the water between the
concession stand and the three tiny one room cabins. It was at
the base of the fishing boat dock. Not sue if the house was
built or moved in? Their house had basement doors that
opened to the lake. In the winter ice was cut from lake and
stored under house with straw for insulation to be used during
the summer for the concession stand and the cabin ice boxes.
Sometimes we would pick up a 50 # block of ice after
Sunday mass. We attended Cadott church when first married
up until we started the boys at Notre Dame School.
Right, no refrigeration yet. Ernie would also get up early to
sell ice to fishermen for keeping their catches from spoiling.
Ernie also built brown and white row boats in the basement
during the winter from wood slats. In the spring he would
sink all of them in the lake so the wood would swell and stop
leaking.
I mentioned the family from Ohio who rented the all white
cabin for five weeks each summer. At one point a
controversy developed and the family would not be returning.
That is when I converted half of the basement of my current
house to an apartment. It was only rented five weeks a year
until they stopped coming up each summer. Then we rented it
year around after I retired and we began spending winters
without snow.
Writers Note
One of the most memorable parts of following my Grandpa
Cote around was changing a light bulb. Believe it or not it
was a dare devil trick to change outdoor lights. The lights out
over the parking and picnic area was a simple wire stretched
long distances with pig tails attached. When a bulb would
burn out grandpa would hold a twelve wood ladder straight
up in the air as I climbed up to remove the bulb. I would
climb down and get a new bulb and climb back up. We did
this routine many times over a few years.
When I was old enough to drive a motorboat alone I was old
enough to teach water skiing. In other stories dad describes
the three houses he built. Living only a short walk or boat
ride from the pay beach I had a built-in customer base all
summer. Initially the cabin guests would buy my gas and
later I actually charged by the hour. The best part was that
parents would actually pay me to teach their daughters how
to water ski. Some would even wish to learn to slalom ski.
This was great because we could ski double and I could put
my arm around the girl to steady her while she dropped he
one ski. The bad news was that some caught on quickly.
Wissota Beach Resort Water Slide