When Mike and I joined the Carter Lake Sailing Club (CLSC), it didn’t take long for us to begin asking questions. We wondered how this small sailing club enjoyed a clubhouse with a beautiful view of the lake and slips filled with rocking sailboats. How long had the Club been here? Why was CLSC the only Club on the lake? How did the Club come to have this clubhouse and docks? Listening to stories from longtime members, we kept hearing the same comment: “All that would be in the Commodore’s Box. It’s metal and about this big.” But where was the Commodore’s Box? No one knew. When word spread that we were interested in CLSC history, members began to bring us relics, like a 1980’s Regatta t-shirt or pictures of the flagstone deck from 1963. But the official history, the Commodore’s Box, remained lost.
Then, on a cold and snowy night in February 2003, our phone rang. Mike answered and handed it to me with these words: “You won’t believe who’s on the phone. I think you might be interested.” I answered to find Jim Muchow, 1995 commodore and longtime CLSC member. Moving from the area, he had found some boxes of CLSC papers that he thought might have some historical value. Did we want them? Yes! As we drove over, we wondered, what does he have? Is this the missing history? Does he have the Commodore’s Box?
We pulled up to the house, snow falling and a U-Haul in the driveway. After collecting four boxes and saying goodbye to a CLSC friend, we rushed home to dig in. What do we have? Logs, lots of Logs, from the sixties, seventies and eighties, but also handwritten notes and documents dating back to the early 1950’s in a metal box. The Commodore’s Box and missing history of the Carter Lake Sailing Club was found.
This early history confirmed that the CLSC, then named the Denver Sailing Club, was formed in 1953. Club members enthusiastically began to plan a Fifty-Year Celebration where members from all five decades were invited back to the lake. Mike and I began to organize and share what been the scattered history in Log articles from the documents at hand. Many years later, we are still collecting, and through the website we have been contacted by many past members who have sent articles and pictures and memories.