The area where Sara’s Dinor and the campgrounds are today was once known as The Head. Its true name was Massassauga Point. In 1874 there were three hotels operating at the Head. At the time there was also a boat rental service, a small fishing village, and a small general store located along the eastern shoreline of the Point. The most popular and largest of the hotels was owned by William L. Scott, its name was the Massassauga Point Hotel. Mr. Scott purchased much of the land for his hotel at a sheriff sale. He first built a small hotel, which he leased to John Baccus. Then in 1879, Scott took back the lease and built a huge hotel, dance hall and resort where the small hotel once stood. It quickly became the favorite destination of choice. In 1880 he added a large covered picnic shelter and bandstand. Bands played at the picnic grounds from Friday to Sunday, twelve hours per day.
Guests could go to the bars and the dance halls daily on the Head, or book a room or a suite at the hotels for a day, a week, or the whole season. The resorts and hotels were at their busiest on Fridays and weekends. All the hotels were usually fully booked on weekdays. Scott who was the largest individual owner of coal producing land in the world, also had three farms on the Point’s land. These farms supplied the produce for the hotels on the point. He also raised horses at one of them.
Many visitors called the whole district Erie’s Pleasure Ground. The Head could be reached either by steamboat, or by a rough gravel carriageway that went down a steep hill leading to the peninsula. At that time it was called the Head Road, today it is known as Peninsula Drive. Scott built a wide dock to moor the steamers and ferry boats that would come to the Head from downtown Erie. Six ferryboats made eight round trips a day on the weekends.
The Erie’s party set who favored the Massassauga Hotel was rumored to have had high-stakes card games in the third floor ballroom of the hotel that took place each weekend evening. Gambling was against the law and the manager of the hotel had a person at the top of the hill with a long rope that he would pull when the law was sighted, which rang a bell at the hotel, by the time the police arrived there was no gambling to be found.
The Head became a gathering place for all sorts of people, rich, poor, and the emerging middle class. From Friday until late Sunday evening the resort was crowded with picnics, political and religious rallies, reunions, weddings, and endless crowds whose only purpose for being there was to party. The resort became a fashion show for the women of the time who would wear their best and the most expensive outfits that they could afford.
Two gas wells were drilled on the property and gaslights were abundant all throughout the property. Scott and the other hotel owner made sure all grounds were fashionably laid out with walks, drives, fountains, shrubs and flowers. Two water springs were found on the property and Scott had it bottled in ½ gallon containers. He sold them under the name of Massassauga Mineral Spring Water. Due to the dangerous quality of Erie’s water at the time the bottled water sold very well.
On December 1, 1882, when the Massassauga Hotel was empty, a fire broke out and within eight hours it totally consumed the hotel. It took three years for the old hotel to be removed and a new one to be built. In the spring of 1885 a new hotel was opened. Scott also built an amusement park and added a roller coaster to the resort. At the time it was the only one in this part of the country and it instantly became a big draw to the hotel and the Head.
The peninsula was still an undeveloped wilderness at the time and beach bathing was done primarily at the Head and the new amusement park at the top of Head Road, which also had a beach area on the lake for swimming. Jake and Frieda Franz ran a large bathhouse with showers and dressing areas. They rented swimsuits and beach gear to families who might come unprepared for swimming. Frieda was also known to babysit some of the younger children so the parents could visit the other attractions on the Head.
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| Massagua Point Hotel. |
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| Massassauga Point Dance Hall. |
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| Massassauga Point Steam Boat Pier. |
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| Massassauga Point Old Head Road (1895) |