LAKE VERMILION- As one of the oldest, continuously operating businesses on Lake Vermilion, Aronson Boat Works is getting a major facelift in an effort to better serve its growing customer base.
The business, first established in 1914 by Walter Aronson Sr. and his brother Hillard, initially operated from a marina on the East Two River in Tower but moved in the 1940s to its current location on Lake Vermilion’s Pike Bay. Since then, the marina’s two-story, over-the-water boathouse has been a landmark on Pike Bay. That is, until this week when the boathouse came down to make room for a new and expanded docking system that will offer mooring for additional boats. It’s part of an upgrade that is also replacing all of the marina’s existing docking, all of which dates back decades.
“We already have a waiting list of existing customers for the new slips,” said marina owner Gretchen (Aronson) Niemiste. Gretchen and her husband John are the third generation of Aronson’s to operate the business.
Planning for the project has taken over a year, with permits required from multiple state and federal agencies.
“It’s going to be beautiful when it is done,” said Niemiste. “But it is a stressful project to do during our busy summer season.” With the late ice-out and quick summer warmup, marina staff had to scramble to get the area ready for the contractors, at the same time summer customers were needing boats taken out of storage and put into the water.
Contractors are recycling as much of the materials as possible, Niemiste said. The tin siding is being recycled, and the metal roof from the covered slip will be used as roofing on a new storage building.
The wood, for the most part, is not suitable for reuse. Niemiste said the building was extremely well built, and in 1941, that meant using so many nails that it would be almost impossible to get them all out again. The footings of the building are railroad ties pounded down 26 feet and will all be pulled out.
The building was used to store older wooden boats. Getting them all out at once was a challenge because most didn’t have trailers, and needed to be soaked in the water, a few at a time, to swell up the boards and make them watertight, before being moved.
The second story of the structure had been used for storage for the last 80 years. Niemiste said they had been clearing out the assortment of old wooden boat parts and other business rick-a-rack for the last couple of years. One item of note was an old stencil, with the initials A.B.L (for Aronson Boat Livery), which most likely dated back to the earliest days of the business, when it was located on the East Two River, at Tower’s old harbor.
As heavy equipment worked to knock down the building, some debris floated out on the lake. John Niemiste was puttering around the docks, picking out floating pieces of lumber. Some lakeshore residents on the other side of Pike Bay said they were finding old paper receipts washing up on shore, which perhaps had worked their way between walls and boards and dated back to the 1950s.
As the large boathouse was being torn down, new marina-style dockage was being installed to the east. These first new docks will have enough slips to store all the boats that are currently stored in the water, and then the remaining docks will be removed and new docking installed. Once the rest of the docks are installed, it will free up space on land for additional parking because boats currently stored on trailers can be stored in the water.
Over the past few years, Aronson has added a stand-alone mechanic/repair building, additional indoor boat storage, and an off-site boat storage facility.
Aronson Boat Works history
The business is in its third generation of the Aronson family, although four Aronson families have had their time behind the rudder.
Hillard was killed fighting in World War I in 1918, so the marina’s ownership was carried down through Walter’s family, first to Gretchen’s aunt and uncle Walt Jr. and Ruth Aronson and later to her parents, John and Joyce Aronson. Gretchen and John took over the operation in the mid-1990s.
Originally, there were no roads going around Lake Vermilion, and so the marina was used as a delivery service to lake settlers. The Aronson brothers used two large, hand-built wooden boats named the Maryland and Mayflower to ferry people, mail, groceries and building supplies across the wide lake.
In the ‘40s, the marina moved from its location on the East Two River to Pike Bay to get out of the way for the construction of the Hwy. 169 bridge and later, converted to more modern, faster wooden boats to keep up with the growing demand of delivery on the lake.
The marina also operates a mail boat during the summer months, contracting with the local Post Office since the 1920s, delivering mail to about 70 stops on the lake’s islands and water-access properties. The mail boat also offers visitors a chance to see remote island cabins and summer homes all across the lake through regular tours offered on the daily mail run.