The Ellis Boat Harbor

CEDAR RAPIDS - Thomas Kelty wasn't happy that a man and a group of boys from Time Check had decided to swim nude between the boat landings at his property in the Manhattan area near Ellis Park in the summer of 1901. He purchased several boxes of empty pop bottles and broke them over the rail of his excursion boat, the “Parlor City.” Scattering the pieces along the river bank, he thought that would prevent the gang from swimming in the river at that point. When a neighbor reprimanded him, Kelty replied that it was his land and he would do with it as he pleased.

Sunday school organizations that had been picnicking in Manhattan Grove and the people who had patronized Kelty's boat were not happy, and Kelty promised to clean up the broken glass.

Kelty's steamboat license already was being challenged because of a collision on the river a few days before. Passengers claimed that Kelty bumped a sand barge on purpose when he saw someone else running an excursion up the river.

The former saloon owner had a string of skirmishes with people after he started his steamboat line. One of the most prominent was a lawsuit against the Northwestern Railroad for removing a boat house and his boat from the river bank at C Avenue West while the company was constructing a bridge across the Cedar River.

Kelty purchased his steamer, “Parlor City,” in May 1899 with the understanding that he would be able to use the landing and to have an unobstructed use of the river. The Northwestern's old bridge was high enough to allow “Parlor City” to pass easily beneath it. The new bridge, however, was much lower and the steamer could only pass under it when water in the channel was low. The railroad bridge remained and Kelty had to adjust his excursion business accordingly.

As the excursion business faded, the popularity of boathouses and houseboats on the river increased, but boat owners had to moor their vessels along the Cedar's west edge at Ellis Park. Each spring they faced damage or even destruction to their boats by the Cedar River's flooding debris and ice floes. Some boats were even ripped loose from their mooring and crashed downstream. Owners dreamed of a sheltered cove in which to harbor their boats.

The Cedar River bathhouse was unheated in early 1948 when a group of shivering boat enthusiasts met to form the Cedar Boat Club. Their goal was to acquire land for a protected harbor. They set their sights on a 17½-acre swamp upriver from the bathhouse.

The land was owned by the Kelty brothers, descendants of T.A. Kelty. A relative of the Keltys and a boat club member, Stan Tischer, began negotiations for the land. In 1960, the Keltys deeded the land to Tisher for $1, and Tisher turned it over to the boat club, which then deeded it to the city for $1.

By 1956, the dormant Riverfront Improvement Commission was reactivated by Mayor James Meaghan and claimed the bathhouse as their headquarters. In 1957, dredging for the harbor began. The work was done in stages over several years.

In 1958, the public got to see what that dream might look like at the boat club's first boat show at Memorial Coliseum. The event included a plaster of Paris model of the harbor that finally was finished in 1962. Additional improvements were made in 1969.

The harbor was a thriving community by 1976 according to a Gazette article, “The boathouses, houseboats and boats are as varied as the people that live there - some are fancy and expensive; others are modest and simple. They party together and help each other in time of need. A recent boat fire in the harbor was put out by neighbors before the fire department even arrived on the scene.”

The construction of the 5-in-1 dam in 1983 concerned some harbor residents, who blamed the new dam for flooding their boathouses. The city engineer and the dam operator explained that the dam was constructed for flood control and its function was to keep the water levels from fluctuating rapidly. They blamed the problems on the ice jams blocking the water flow.

Where people live, trash accumulates and in 1994, the Cedar Boat Club organized a cleanup of the bottom of the harbor. More than 100 rusty metal barrels were retrieved. The drums, attached to the undersides of the boathouses to keep them afloat, deteriorated and sunk to the bottom of the harbor.

Life on in the harbor was reflected in a 2003 story, “On a clear Friday evening in June, Ellis Harbor springs to life with people walking up and down the shore and boats passing in and out of the harbor. It's a signal that the weekend has arrived, as the harbor turns from a quiet weekday getaway into a bustling place full of people having fun. … Quite simply, it's a happy place.”

In 2008, the harbor was decimated by catastrophic flooding. The boathouses were torn loose and sent down river to crash into the side of the Chicago-Northwestern bridge. Some boats washed up on the banks of the river.

Recovery efforts were hindered when the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said the boathouses were illegal and had to go. A compromise was reached in 2009 allowing the boats to remain under the supervision of the DNR instead of the city.

The DNR, however, applied a series of stringent rules that guaranteed that the harbor community eventually would die out.

In 2010, the Iowa House and Senate passed legislation that allowed the harbor to remain under its old rules with a few changes: foam-filled floats instead of plastic barrels and stronger systems to keep the vessels anchored to shore during high water.

Today the harbor is well on its way to recovery.

Comments: (319) 398-8338; diane.langton@sourcemedia.net