Lake Phalen has long drawn people seeking a place to gather and connect with nature. By 1879, the Phalen Chain of Lakes was advertised as a resort area offering boating, fishing, and hunting, and the park was established in 1894. The chain itself was formed by glaciers moving through the area over the last 2.58 million years, leaving submerged river valleys and changing landscapes; about 20,000 years ago, the last glacier left Lake Phalen and the other lakes in an old river valley once occupied by the St. Croix River. For many years, the Dakota traveled from the Mississippi through a creek to Lake Phalen, where the chain of lakes provided prime hunting and fishing grounds. In 1869, the St. Paul Water Company began supplying water from the lake to homes and businesses in St. Paul, and the lake remained a primary city water source through 1913. A streetcar station built on the west side of the lake in 1894 increased park visitation and encouraged canoe rentals, beach houses, pavilions, and bandstands. In the early 1920s, visitors relaxed in rented canoes in the island lagoon while listening to music on portable phonographs. In 1931, a crowd at Phalen Beach watched Olympic swim champion Johnny Weissmuller, star of Tarzan movies, perform. Linke's Landing was a familiar landmark and popular launching site for hunting, fishing, swimming, and rowing in the early 1900s. Bulrush, an important native plant, had been removed from Lake Phalen by the 1940s, but restoration efforts brought it back. Since the early 1900s, drastic shoreline alteration, dredging of the lake bottom, removal of native plants, and filling of wetlands destroyed fish and wildlife habitat and caused erosion, leading the community in 2001 to restore the shoreline to a more natural state.
