[Lake Geneva, WI Trade Card]

Capitalizing on early tourist trends around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

This turn-of-the-century advertising trade card was issued by James B. Davis, a dry goods dealer in Fontana, Wisconsin, located on the western shore of Geneva Lake. Various products ranging from fancy groceries to carriages, boots, and sewing machines are advertised, with Jersey dairy butter as a particular specialty.

The card’s verso presents a simplified road map of the lake district, noting the railway depot, Williams Bay, the Fontana Post Office, and a constellation of resorts such as Cedar Point, Kayes Park, Glenwood Springs, and the Elgin Club. Particularly notable is the inclusion of Yerkes Observatory, completed in 1897, which quickly became both a scientific landmark and a cultural attraction for visitors; the observatory embodied the intersection of education and leisure that helped distinguish Geneva Lake as a resort destination.

By the late 19th century, Chicago’s expanding middle and upper classes were traveling in increasing numbers to the lake by rail, seeking recreation, summer cottages, and access to amenities, and businesses like Davis’s prospered by supplying these seasonal visitors. Surviving trade cards of this type—ephemeral by design and often discarded—are important artifacts of both local commerce and the broader history of tourism in the Great Lakes region.

Source: City of Fontana History