Lake Junior High Spring Regatta
Lake Junior High Spring Regatta
Springtime in the Rockies means different things to different people, but the opportunities for springtime sailing within the city limits of Denver are limited at best. That lack of open water was hardly an obstacle for the students of Lake Junior High during the early 20th century, when they participated in the Lake Junior High Spring Regatta.
The Regatta was held on Sloan Lake (commonly referred to as Sloan’s Lake), a body of water that’s not necessarily known as a sailing mecca. To accommodate the nautical skills of the average Denver-area junior high student, the boats in this race were strictly of the model variety (Hey, it’s Denver after all).
Current residents of the Mile High City might be taken aback by what’s clearly missing from this photo—the Denver Skyline. During the pre-war years, Denver’s skyline did not dominate the horizon the way it does today. While there were certainly noteworthy buildings such as the Brown Palace, the Equity Building, and Daniels & Fisher Tower on the skyline, they weren’t quite visible from faraway Sloan Lake.
While Sloan Lake doesn’t host many sailboat regattas these days, it is the home of the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival and its small dock is filled with water skiing boats. In landlocked, urban Denver, that’s a whole lot of boating.
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