End of an Era

By the early 1920's, the automobile was well on it's way to becoming the preferred mode of transportation in Minnesota. The number of motor vehicles in the state topped 300,000 - a huge increase over the 7,000 automobiles licensed in 1909. With the coming of the auto came the construction of better roads. Minnesotans traveled faster and farther than ever before. They could go where they wanted, when they wanted and thus became less dependent on public transportation.

It was the beginning of the end for Lake Minnetonka's steamboats.

By the mid 1920's, ridership on the formerly indispensable fleet of fast, yellow express boats had fallen way off. Initially, this resulted in reduced schedules. Then, one by one, the boats were withdrawn from service until, finally, they stopped operating altogether.

In July of 1926, workers dismantled three of the fleet's seven boats: the Como, the White Bear, and the Minnehaha. They filled the three boats with red clay tiles and other debris from the demolished Big Island Amusement Park. Then the tug Priscilla towed the boats to deep water between Big Island and Brackett's Point. There the boats were pumped full of water and allowed to slowly sink to he bottom.

The remaining streetcar boats experienced a variety of different fates. The Harriet and the Stillwater were dismantled and dispersed. The Excelsior was stripped of it's upper deck and converted into a tug, whereas the Hopkins survived the longest. It was sold to the Blue Line Cafe, painted an uninspiring white and renamed the Minnetonka, where it operated as an excursion boat until 1949 when it, too, was scuttled north of Big Island.