For most of its recorded history, the Raquette served practical purposes as a transportation route and a source of food, water, and power. As local industry declined in the twentieth century, recreational use of the river grew, attracting photographers, painters, walkers, boaters, and swimmers to its shores and waters. Turn-of-the-century boaters used oared craft resembling Adirondack guideboats, often with couples facing each other, and canoeing experienced surges in popularity in the 1900s and again in the 1950s. The village had no sewage treatment system until 1886, when pipes were laid to collect waste, but the sewage was still discharged untreated into the river at Raymond Street, creating mosquito swarms and bad summer odors and making areas downriver unsafe for children to swim. A sewage treatment plant built nearby in 1969 began returning clean water to the river, and the decline of local shoreline industry also helped produce a cleaner river.