A Lake Minnetonka Icon: The Tower of Seville. . ?
Today, we’re on Big Island in the year 1910. It’s a breezy summer evening and we’ve spent a full day on the island with friends and family.
Our group enjoyed a wonderful variety of activities to help make the hours of the day feel like minutes. Just to the right of us, kids scream as a log chute ride brings them around a whirlpool and splashes them with water. A rollercoaster nearby takes visitors above the tree’s canopies. For a moment, before plunging back to Earth, they catch a glimpse of the lake and Wayzata in the distance.
A short walk up the hill, the trees open to a clearing with a large pavilion. Here, a band plays songs by John Philip Sousa, Scott Joplin, the Hayden Quartet, and more. All are recreations of the originals, but their raging popularity is hard to beat. Some couples dance with the music while onlookers cheer at their display. Looking beyond to a distant background, steam powered ferries quietly ply the water, bringing visitors to and from the island.
The many paths leading around the island deposit visitors to attractions, games, sights, and more. Canoes can be rented at the docks and a rocky beach can be enjoyed for swimming.
You wouldn’t guess it now but, within a year, the park will be abandoned by its owners and left to ruin. A few years after that, it’ll be demolished for scrap metal. There’s a war breaking out in Europe and the scrap metal will prove valuable, “over there”.
For now, though, you and your party begin to make your way back toward the boat docks. Before climbing down the wide flight of concrete steps by the wharf, you take a moment to look back at the picturesque scene of the park. In the center, a 183 foot water tower stands as the icon of the whole island. Built to look like Spain’s famous Tower of Seville, it serves not only as the island’s fresh water source but also as housing for a massive rotating beacon which powers on at night. From Excelsior, Wayzata, and the Lafayette Club, this electric light can easily be seen gleaming on the otherwise dark horizon. Too bad we won’t get to see it lit up today. Maybe on another visit, and at a later hour. The park still has so much we didn’t get to see. . .
