Edgewater Park celebrates 100 years

(ABC 6 News) – On August 13th, 1922, Edgewater Park opened in Albert Lea. Now, in 2022 the park is celebrating its 100th birthday. Saturday, the city of Albert Lea celebrated the park’s birthday. What started out as just a few picnic tables on the shores of Fountain Lake, now, 100 years later is an over 60 acre park for everyone to enjoy. Burt Skinner helped create the park with the vision of everyone in the community enjoying its beauty and time spent with friends and family.

"It’s a huge park. It’s nestled around the bay of Fountain Lake. We can have all sorts of wonderful activities. So, it’s just been a great opportunity to showcase the gem of park we have," said executive director of the visitor’s bureau Holly Karsjens. Like the size of the park itself organizers wanted the party to be big. Karsjens added, "it’s a lot of moving parts and it takes a lot of meetings to have you know, this type of sized event to happen. But, we’ve been really happy with how it, how it turned out."

People got enjoy live music, a water ski show and activities for the kids. With the help of bike m-n which is group that promotes people to ride their bikes, the city also able combined the party with it’s annual rock n roll the lakes bike ride. Which had over 100 participants. Dorian Grilley the executive director for the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota said, "we help with the logistics of the event. Things like registration and money. And then the local people to the sponsorships and execute and plan, and plan the route."

One of the riders in this year’s bike ride was David Anderson who has fond memories growing up coming to Edgewater Park. He said he love to, "climb the slide, do some mischief, fly off the swing sets, drive my bike up here."

To the citizens of Albert Lea, Edgewater is more than just a park, but rather a part of the community.