Loup Generator — Fall 2020

the WPA, the PWA and the Loup District have one master,
the people, and we should all be cooperating.”
He hoped that the WPA would reconsider and approve
the project. A few months later, Loup was accepting
sealed bids for coarse gravel and concrete riprap. The
project was financed and constructed under the terms of
Ttitle II of the National Industrial Recovery Act.
By January of 1938, 29 WPA laborers were working to
clear 1,000 feet of shoreline at the lake.
“Almost from the time when the
Loup River Public Power project was first proposed,
a vision began to take form in the minds of many
lovers of the out-of-doors in Columbus who began
mentally picturing a piscatorial, camping and picnicking
playground as a by-product of the huge undertaking.
“When plans for the power canal and reservoir were
announced, the vision began to
take more definite shape. These
visionaries with prophetic eye
could see a summer paradise at
Lake Babcock, the reservoir-tobe
almost within the city’s front
yard.”
This was the news on June
26, 1936, in The Columbus
Daily Telegram. There was one
big problem to making this
Columbus dream a reality — a
lack of money to do so.
So, it was suggested that “businessmen and sportsmen
organize their own voluntary project.” As an alternative,
portions of the shore could be leased and developed
privately.
In August of 1937, Loup Secretary and General
Manager Harold Kramer and his family spent a week at
Lake Okoboji. They came back with plenty of ideas.
“We have the advantage of benefiting by the
experiences of these other watering places,” he
said. “We start with a clean slate, and while our lake
is comparatively smaller, nevertheless, it has the
opportunity of becoming considerable of a spa in mid-
Nebraska.”
He told the Daily Telegram there were several
problems that needed to be addressed before any
development could occur.
The most important was lack of land to develop.
Kramer said District officials tried to acquire as
much land as possible. However, the Public Works
Administration (PWA) only allowed spending money for
the hydroelectric project and not recreation development.
The second problem was the lack of funds to
bring in gravel to create a beach. The Works Progress
Administration (WPA) had a plan to help with the project,
but was unable because of a rule preventing the WPA and
PWA from overlapping in one area.
“A lack of coordination existed which was regrettable
and which failed to bring an improvement to thousands
of people in this whole territory,” Kramer said. “After all,
6 GENERATOR
“From all over the eastern half
of Nebraska they come —
pleasure boat owners asking
for permission to sail their crafts
on the waters of Lake Babcock.”
— Columbus Telegram, May 13, 1939
Several boaters made headlines in the fall of 1938.
The first was the Gray Goose — the lake’s first
sailboat. The 10-foot boat was built by Leonard Miller
and Emil Marx in the basement of the Miller home.
They managed to get it out
of the basement and to the lake,
sailing two miles with “nary a
mishap” on Sept. 14.
The Gray Goose made news
again five days later when it
overturned and Leonard Miller
and Miss Bettijane Malony hung
on to the dinghy for more than a
half hour for help.
Next to make news was the
Kingfisher, another homemade
ship, built by Frederick Harris of
Monroe. It was built of mahogany, oak and cypress, and
was powered by a four-cyclinder Continental motor. It
measured 17 feet from stem to stern.
In February 1939, the Telegram reported that Loup was
planning to officially open the lake to pleasure boating
and possibly commercially operated boats.
“Boating has been permitted to this extent — that the
district, while not authorizing it, has not chased away
the several venturesome spirits who have launched small
boats on the surface of the lake.”
An estimated 1,300 visited Lake Babcock on Sunday,
May 21, 1939, to “watch the maneuverings of ‘sailors’
and the coursings of boats on the big lake.”
The District issued 106 permits to boat owners in 16
towns including Lincoln, Omaha and Bruning.
Development plans really started coming together by
June that year.
Herman Woerth received permission to sell live bait.
Frederic Harris got the first commercial boating permit
to sell rides in the Kingfisher. Refreshment stands were
in the works.
On June 8, 1939, the Lake Babcock Amusement Resort,