Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Wistful Wednesday : Pine Springs Resort Cottages

When we purchased the resort back in 1986 all the cottages were different colors of green.  I like green and chose a pale green color to paint everything.  It was quite a project.

All the Cottages had strange names too.

Waco was a cottage they removed and the sign was stuck and grown into a Willow Tree.

Wewoka became Aspen ( I wanted some kind of order)

Sioux City ?? became  Birch

St. Louis?? became  Cedar

South Omaha  ?? or maybe St. Charles??  became Maple

Tulsa became  Oak

Cherokee became Pine

  Kansas City became  Spruce

                             Willow didn’t have a proper name, they used it for storage.

The Fish Cleaning house was named Colfax because the first people who cleaned fish were from Colfax Iowa.

I am getting older and don’t quite remember which was which I may have Sioux City and St. Louis mixed up. We always laughed at that name Wewoka.. We woka up!   They were originally named for towns of the first guests.

I have a video someplace, few of the old photos have names that you can read…and none of the photos are marked with cottage names..just dates.  Another winter project.

Our daughters may remember.

Resort 1995 MN

The pontoon on the left was called Big Blue, Far Guy bought it for ten dollars.  It nearly sank as water came over the boards as Art and Kathy towed us home after we bought it.  It was beached and the pontoons were repaired and a new deck was installed. Some of my favorite times was when we loading up a cooler and the grill and heading out in front of the resort to cook supper and ignore the ringing phone on a Friday night...we had an outside bell that rang when the phone rang. Saturday was work day…cleaning those cottages kept me busy.

The stone foundation boat house on the edge of the lake is all that remains. Boat house and bait on the lower level and the upper level was a Recreation Room.

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17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the photo and memories.

Intense Guy said...

Beautiful place. I wish I could have been a guest back when you were running the place! Bet it would have wifi Internet now.. but I could live (easily) without it!

Primitive Stars said...

Morning Connie, always enjoy your wonderful memories and pictures, so much fun, Francine.

linda m said...

What a lovely resort. Looks like a place I would love to stay at.

DJan said...

I also would have loved to stay there. You have certainly done a lot of different things in your life. Hope Far Guy is getting better. :-)

Travels with Emma said...

Having a cookout on a pontoon boat sounds very inviting.

Nancy said...

Resorts are wonderful places for guests to relax, but I can only imagine the amount of work it takes to maintain the cottages and the grounds. My family had a reunion in 2006 at Breezy Point Resort near Park Rapids, MN. We enjoyed the resort and the area.

L. D. said...

My late wife and I bought a cabin like these in 1973. I paid it off in 15 years of payments and the whole area was owned by a group of 12. We owned the land together and each owned our cabins. My wife Della and I sold it to my late wife's sisters in 1990's. They immediately tore it down and put up a new cabin. They were good years of memories. Our land had one of the only sand beaches on Lake Pokegama. Our sons still go back some summers and visit with the aunts at the old place today.

Cynthia said...

Memories of summers at the lake are the best! I'm glad the old boathouse is still there with all it's memories. I like your choice of name theme for the cabins.

Red said...

The setting of your resort was very pleasant so who could ever forget it.

Ryker said...

How wonderful, a resort on a lake! I love it!

Marty said...

Wistful indeed. We had a lake house for 20 years, the best years, when our kids were pre-teens and into their twenties. We held our daughter's reception in the tents we set up in the back yard, right on the lake.
I still miss it when the weather grows warm, but at least we build amazing memories for our kids.

kathy b said...

Was it fun? I romanticize everything…
we stayed at a place in Boulder Junction Wisconsin it was idyllic. The family seemed to work hard, but still enjoy the lake life

kathy b said...

I romanticize that life. Was it fun? We stayed at cabins in Boulder junction Wisconisn for many summers. THe family was fun and seemed to work hard but have little privacy

Karen said...

What a wonderful place to grow up though....I think:) Hope you didn't make those girls work too hard!

Rita said...

I always wondered what the small MN resort life would be like. A lot of work and you are chained to the spot but what a beautiful place to live. :)

Sam I Am...... said...

What happened to the cottages? It looks so peaceful. Too bad you couldn't have kept it but stopped the business part. It's a lot of work to run a business like that. You're pretty much "on call" 24/7.