The Frame Boathouses
A secondary effect of taming the Schuylkill was that the calm water provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which drove wealthy residents from their riverside mansions. The abandoned estates were bought by the City of Philadelphia. In 1844, the City purchased the Lemon Hill Estate. The leaseholder of Lemon Hill operated a beer garden and allowed rowing and barge clubs to build frame structure boathouses on the Estate's property along the Schuylkill.
In 1855, the City founded Fairmount Park by converting the Lemon Hill Estate, upon which the frame boathouses were built, into a public park. At the same time, some of the established clubs wanted to regulate the sport of rowing to prevent unscrupulous practices and fixed races. As a result, in 1858, the Schuylkill Navy was founded, which eventually transformed the professional sport of rowing into an amateur sport. In 1859, the City condemned the boathouses along the Schuylkill.
Read more about this topic: Boathouse Row
Famous quotes containing the word frame:
“A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)