The Winter Olympics are coming up soon so it’s an appropriate question. You might picture the ice yachts that glide through the Hudson River Valley if someone mentions “ice boats”, which are big ice skates with sails. A group of enthusiasts had once dreamed that St. Louis would be able to compete with Poughkeepsie in iceboating.
They weren’t even the first to skim the ice. The St. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that four teenagers built an iceboat, and launched it from the Mississippi shore in Illinois. A 2-mile course was already set. Their boat was 100 feet in length and 4 feet at its bow, similar to Hudson’s vessels.
For a while, the ice yachting scene looked cool. Then came C. U. and George Y. Bast. Instructors from the St. Louis Manual Training School indeed built their boats in the hopes of launching the sport. Mssrs. Bast and True will show that it isn’t,” the Post-Dispatch reported back in 1901. Bast was an enthusiast for warm-weather yachts; True had built many water-borne yachts. Both had never built an iceboat. They spent three weeks at Creve Coeur Lake boathouse building what the paper called “a long, spidery-looking affair with a long, wooden backbone running its whole length.” The mast was 13 feet tall and held 150 square feet of sail. A platform to the stern accommodated four people. Bast complained to the PostDispatch about the warm weather, but he waited patiently for a hard freeze.
Five years later, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat declared it the next major winter sport. It reported that “the sight of a low-lying craft, with a large sail, flying up and down Creve Coeur Lake at nearly a mile per minute, all with a shower ice being thrown upwards from the runners and rudder caused wonderment over the past week.” The paper reported that there were two ice yachts currently in St. Louis and more are on the way. The article stated that “there is no sport more thrilling or fascinating.” It was a new sport that was not yet tried in St. Louis and the surrounding areas. Two yachts were constructed in the first season of this season. One was an 18-foot cat-rigged boat called the Scooter and the other a 30-foot sloped boat called the Jack Frost. The boats have not been used due to the mild weather.
St. Louis was enthusiastic about ice yachting but it never got the ice.
Fast Fashion
St. Louis and style skiing: A look back
The St. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked Elizabeth Allen to write a column on ski fashions for its smart readers. She wrote that America is rapidly becoming more interested in skiing and that the right costume can make it easier to be a good skier. She said that the pants should be the centerpiece of any ski outfit. Jackets should be short, high-waisted, and with buttons or zippers. However, one could substitute a double-breasted, belted jacket. Allen advised readers to get a beret with pompoms. She also suggested that they avoid department store French Toast Syndrome by getting their ski outfits as soon as possible.
