Another article from the August 21, 1906 edition of the Minneapolis Tribune.
This one caught my eye because of Hall’s Island, where seminal dad band Wilco performed last night. And has, of late, become the go-to outdoor concert venue in Minneapolis, after years of industrial/non-use.
Second, the use of the term ‘Gerber Baths’. Public baths were a common, but I’d never heard that term before. A quick Google search yielded this:
City officials did what they could to try and keep boys from swimming in dangerous waters. In 1905, the city created the Gerber Baths on what was formerly known as Hall (sic) Island. The bath, which was named after one of the city’s aldermen, was established with the expressed purpose of saving boys’ lives. The Minneapolis Journal reported that girls were “not in the habit of getting drowned in the river and [since] the chief object of the baths was to save the boys,” girls were limited to using the bathhouse two half-days a week. Judging from cemetery records, it appears that providing a safer place to swim may have saved at least some boys’ lives.
