Book Signing for Lake Contrary: Lost St. Joseph - Gary Westcott

Lake Contrary was a trolley park, an amusement park at the end of a street trolley line. These trolley parks were built by electric streetcar companies as they searched for and developed a market for electricity, a fairly new utility in most communities. The parks were meant to encourage the public to utilize the cars and increase electricity consumption over the otherwise slow weekends. For the people of St. Joseph, a summer weekend trip to Lake Contrary meant a ride on an open-air trolley with the warm breeze hitting them in the face, as they rolled along at nine miles an hour toward an earthly paradise.