Rogers City's shoreline changed from a commercial waterfront into a public recreation area over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Founded in 1871 during Michigan's lumber boom, the city used the area now known as Lakeside Park for commercial enterprises until around 1950. Fish docks stood beside a small harbor north of today's marina, where numerous companies operated fish tugs and, before World War II, shipped thousands of tons of whitefish, lake trout, and chubs to markets as far away as New York City. From the fish docks south to Woodward Avenue, the shoreline was dominated by the timber industry, with three massive docks at the height of the lumber boom: the Bertram docks at the end of Huron Avenue, on the site of the old Molitor dock, the Larke dock at the end of Michigan Avenue, and the Hoeft dock at the end of Erie Street. The Bertram sawmill stood at the base of its dock, while the extensive Hoeft family mill operations and those of their commercial partners stretched from Erie Street to Woodward Avenue, with a huge sawmill off the end of Ontario Street and towering piles of logs covering the surrounding landscape. Young people often swam around the docks despite the disapproval of sawmill owners. After World War I, the community created a public bathing area south of the commercial frontage, roughly between Orchard Street and Ira Street, cleaning the shoreline, building a small dock, employing summer lifeguards, and eventually adding a tall slide in the water. In 1945, Rogers City became a home rule city to provide a wider range of services, and around 1950, after the sawmills and docks disappeared from the waterfront, plans were made for Lakeside Park and a marina, while the public bathing beach moved to the area between Erie Street and Michigan Avenue. Since then, the park and marina have been gradually expanded and improved.