Then and now: Camp Rich’s pier, boats change

Boats at Camp Richardson looked a little different in 1946 than they do today. Photo/Pomona Public Library Frasher Fotos Collection

The 1946 black-and-white photo, above, shows the early Camp Richardson pier as viewed from the center of the Camp Rich beachfront.

My 1959 color slide, left, shows the pier viewed from the other side, at the west edge of Camp Rich bordering the Valhalla site. Camp Richardson then still was operated by family member Sis Richardson Knisley, years before selling to the U.S. Forest Service in about 1970.

The rental shack seen at the right had kayaks, paddleboards, and something very new. Personal watercraft as we know them today were yet to come, but my 1959 photo, below, shows their infancy. That is me at the Camp Rich pier rentals receiving instruction on how to straddle over a gasoline can on two plastic pontoons strapped together with a 25-horsepower outboard motor. Standing and gripping the cross-bar, I’d lean left or right to steer this craft. Do you think anything like this could be allowed today? I made several treks from Camp Rich to Emerald Bay circling Fannette Island and back, and I’m still here.

All the above is gone now, evidenced by this photo, left, which I took this month from the same vantage point as 1959.

— Bill Kingman