Lake Geneva in south-east Wisconsin is a popular resort. With the creation of a rail link from Chicago in the 19^th century, it became a favorite place for wealthy Chicagoans to escape the heat & grime of Chicago summers. Many wealthy businessmen built mansions around the lake & would send their families their for the summer, joining them on weekends. Lake Geneva became known as “The Newport of the West” with all its mansions & water sport activity. Today it is sometimes referred to as “The Hamptons of the Midwest”. In the 1930s it had a less desirable reputation as a haven for Al Capone and other mobsters.

Lake Geneva has also been a popular location for many summer camps, including those run by the YMCA. The postcard shown below is a particularly nice example of the Lake Geneva YMCA camp in the early 1900s (card is currently listed in my auctions). The V.O. Hammon Publishing Company, based in Chicago published pictorial postcards of Midwestern cities & scenes from 1904 until 1923. They produced some of the best quality postcards of the period.

Further examples of Lake Geneva postcards can be seen at:

Images of Lake Geneva – University of Wisconsin Madison’s digital image project.

The Lake County Discovery Museum in Illinois (look for postcard collection link) has a V O Hammon collection that is searchable on the Digital Past database.