Wish You Were Here: Vintage Iceboat Postcards from Madison

A new summer series begins today featuring the original “Short Message Service”, vintage postcards from around the world. Let’s start right here in the Four Lakes area of Madison, Wisconsin with these five postcards.

Bernard’s Fleet recalls the time when the Bernard family kept a rental fleet of Stern Steerers on Lake Mendota. “Princess” World International RacerĀ was a famous Stern Steerer built by William Bernard for Emil Fauerbach (Peter Fauerbach’s great great uncle).

I’ll post more in the coming weeks. If you have any to share, please let me know.

 

A Surprise in the Mail

Bill Mattison’s Renegade, SNAPSHOT.

A package recently arrived here at iceboat.org containing an old scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings and black and white photos of the Madison iceboating scene from the late 1940s through 1950s. Herb Krogman may have assembled this historic scrapbook and Renegader Jerry Simon has volunteered to look through it to help confirm my suspicions.(By the way, if you sent this to me, please send send me an email so that I can thank you!)
In the meantime, here are a few photos for now. I’ll continue to scan and post more in the coming weeks.

Classic view of Skeeters racing on Lake Monona.

What a fleet of Renegades!