Detroit Boat Club - in The 20th Century

In The 20th Century

On August 4, 1902, the current boathouse (the first concrete structure in the US) was dedicated.

Detroit continued to grow. Horse-drawn trolleys were being replaced by electric streetcars, planked sidewalks were paved and gas lamps were replaced by electric lights. On the river, sleek racing sculls became standard equipment, and canoeing became popular. The Detroit Boat Club became even a greater force in the social and sporting fabric of Detroit.

DBC legends are plentiful, but one epitomizes the club's sporting tradition. During a 1923 regatta in Detroit two middle-aged Grand Rapids Canoe Club oarsmen issued a challenge to any pair whose total ages equaled or exceeded their own --114 years -- to a match race in double sculls at a mile straightaway.

DBC members W.A. (Pop) Warner, 74, and Capt. Fred Standish, 70, --144 years between them -- saw the challenge on the club's bulletin board and vowed to take them on.

It was a tight race until the stretch, where Warner and Standish began to pull away. They beat their younger Grand Rapids rivals by a full three lengths.

In 1956 the Detroit Boat Club put seven members on the U.S. Olympic team coached by Walter Hoover and brought home two silver medals. Rowers Jimmy Gardiner and Pat Costello placed second to the Russians in double sculls while Art and John McKinlay, John Welchi and Jim McIntosh, were runner-up to Canada in the four without coxswain event.

Since 1873, the DBC blue and white colors have flown at every national rowing regatta, and DBC oarsmen have won 54 events and eight national team championships.

In 1960, under coach Ken Blue, DBC crews were invited for the first time to take part in the classic Henley Royal Regatta on the Thames River in England. A team made up of Doug Latimer, Jim Plath, Bob Walker, Bill Thorpe, Roger Taylor, Joe Callanan, Al Arbury, Mike Ernesman, and coxswain Bob Kroll placed second to Harvard in the final. Any account of DBC rowing must include Divie Duffield, the greatest oarsmen in the club's history, who came to DBC from Harvard. He won the national singles titles in 1904 and 1905 and also rowed in doubles, pairs, fours and eights that took major championships. His greatest triumph came in the 1904 Olympic singles in St. Louis. He quit rowing in 1915 and coached for the next 10 years.

While rowing remained the cornerstone of the club's activities, other forms of boating became popular. Sailing arrived in 1899 and the DBC regatta is the oldest sailing race in Michigan.

Few know that member commodore Dr. Charles Godwin Jennings and his 65-foot (20 m) schooner, Agawa, won the first Mackinac Race held in 1904.

The old Belle Isle Bridge, which burned in April 1915, had a swing section which opened at midnight, preventing anyone on the island from reaching the mainline until the next morning. To be trapped on the island was tantamount to disgrace and social ostracism. All club dances ended promptly at 11:30. Long after the present bridge opened in 1923, dances at the Boat Club and Detroit Yacht Club continued to end at 11:30. In 1992 rent on the Detroit Boat Club property jumped from $1 to $100,000. Utility payments fell behind and membership continued to drop. The club filed for bankruptcy citing a $1million debt. The city announced plans to take over operation of the building. In 1996, the boat club members voted to move out of the city.

"It was certainly difficult for us to come to the decision that if we were going to be economically viable we had to move", club President Larry Breskin said. "If we could have found a way to stay in Detroit, we would have."

However a strong rowing organization still exists in Detroit independent of the boat club. Said rowing enthusiast Denne Osgood in an interview with the News, "I just don't want to see the tradition of the Detroit Boat Club go out of business. We can row as Joe Blow. It's the tradition that's important."