Amateur boating clubs were organized in great profusion, and their boat-houses lined docks and slips in such numbers that the visitor to Detroit was amazed, and even the native could hardly account for the enthusiasm that could support them. Physicians who had patients of sedentary habits had a general prescription of “Take a little spin on the river in the evening,” which was administered quantum suff. Even the ladies were interested in the sport. It was no uncommon sight to see big barges industriously propelled by young girls and maidens grown, with here and there a more elderly person, who, with advancing years, had not forgotten the long sweep or the feathering motion of the oar.
The organization of a baseball club and its admission to the National League diverted some of the enthusiasm which had been given to boating, and the city became “ball-crazy” at once. The paroxysms became more marked every time the team won a substantial victory. Interest increased in the work of the professional club. Good hands began to look after its financial affairs, its positions were well supported, while the small boy and the devotee of physical culture took to ball-playing in summer, in preference to rowing, with a dash of gymnasium work in the winter in which boxing and sparring were the leading features. Getzein, Brouthers and the “good Deacon” White were put up as the idols to be worshipped in the places whence Durell, Dusseau, Van Valkenburgh and the other famous oarsmen of Monroe, Ecorse and Hillsdale had fallen. Even those who were not active, working devotees of the national game were found quite equal to taking their exercise by proxy on the cushioned seats of the grandstand, or in the more exposed positions of the “bleaching-boards.”
THE HIGH POLE VAULT.
Boating had its day. The fast oarsmen dropped back into semi-obscurity. The Montie Brothers, of Ecorse, who were in the famous Wah-wah-tah-see Club, returned to their avocations, as did Schweikart and Alder, of the Centennial Four of Detroit, while their associates, Parker and McMahon, developed into professional athletes and instructors. Only one of the old clubs—the Detroit—retains its organization and equipment in anything like the style in which they were maintained during the prevalence of the aquatic fever. Many of the oarsmen, having grown older, have taken to yachting as a pastime. For this there are unlimited facilities on the Detroit River and in the lakes above and below the city. There is not nearly as much exertion and training required for a yachting expedition as for a mile-and-a-half straightaway, and yet there is quite as much judgment called into play in handling sheets and tiller, with immeasurably more real sport.
Baseball, while it has palled somewhat, seems to have encouraged the taste for individual exertion. Up to a very recent period that taste was inclined to the pastime from which it came—baseball. No great interest was taken in general athletics by the majority until about a year ago. Prior to that time an organization for the promotion of general athletics had existed in the Detroit Amateur Athletic Association. Its membership, however, was small, and though its ambitions may have been great, its achievements were few, one alone excepted; that being its expansion into the present Detroit Athletic Club, and its fitting up of gymnasia and grounds. The Amateur Athletic Association was very like good King William IV. in that “nothing, perhaps, in life so became it like the leaving of it.” It merged itself into the movement for the new club, of which it was the precursor, and its members the founders and boomers until there was no further need of booming; for the present club is a pretty healthy infant. Its birth occurred at a time when its existence was most needed, and just after the period when boating had lost favor, and the ambitious athletes had learned that baseball had not all that could satisfy the utmost desires of the athletic spirit. It had a manifest advantage in being able to offer a greater diversity of sports than boating and baseball, which, after all, are two very limited sections of the general field of athletics.
The new association came into existence a year and a half ago. It is not in its organization like the Montreal Association, described by Mr. Whyte in OUTING for April, a federation of the athletic clubs of the city, but is a distinctive and independent club, with its own equipment and government. It was formed as a joint-stock corporation, with five hundred shares of the nominal value of $10.00. The demand for these became so great that a premium was soon obtainable for certificates of membership, their value going up until they are now held at $50.00 per share. The receipts from the sale of stock gave the young club a strong treasury from the start. The grounds of the old Athletic Association were secured on a long lease. They are on Woodward Avenue, in the heart of the finest residential portion of the city, and the plot is, perhaps, the largest piece of desirable property now unoccupied in the city; it contains something over 300,000 square feet, the land being, in round figures, 400 by 800 feet in dimensions. The six acres thus afforded have a value of nearly $200,000. They are readily accessible from both the business and residential quarters, and face two leading streets.
This property secured, steps were at once taken to erect a building suited to the needs of the club. There were some buildings on the tract barely fit for temporary quarters. In these the club housed itself until the present structure (see illustration, p. 212) was completed and opened last March. The house has a frontage of 107 feet and an extreme depth of 68 feet. It is of pressed brick with brownstone and terra-cotta ornaments, and possesses in its design much of the spirit of the newer styles of construction seen in English library and gymnasium buildings. Its space is well allotted. The entrance-hall is also a reception-room, with a cheery grate in pressed-brick designs. An ornamental staircase leads to the upper floor. The lower floor, besides containing the reception-room, has on it a ladies’ parlor and toilet-room, offices for the directors and stewards, a billiard-room, reading-room, the baths, and a locker-room. A wing on a lower level contains the bowling-alleys, while the upper floor is devoted to the gymnasium, the only reserved space being used for a small refreshment-room. Saved room under staircases is utilized for closets and chests, and there is not an inch of waste space in the house. The kitchen and accommodations for servants of the club are under the roof, in the attic story.
THE RUNNERS OF THE DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.