Canandaigua's City Pier was built in 1848, and the first boathouses appeared during the 1850s. These simple wooden boathouses held mostly small skiffs, while larger ones housed sculling shells, sailing yachts, and steam yachts. By 1888, more than eighty boathouses stood along the pier and in the stream basin. In 1903, the pier was enlarged to carry train and trolley tracks serving steamboats that transported farm produce and passengers along the lake. At that time, the village built finger piers for the boathouses, which were either moved across the ice or demolished and rebuilt in their present location during the winter of 1903-1904. Soon afterward, The Boathouse Owners' Association was formed to help protect the boathouses and enforce strict rules prohibiting people from living in them or using them as cottages. Their rustic character has made them an attraction for artists, tourists, and photographers, and in 1990 the City of Canandaigua added them to the Canandaigua Historic District to preserve that heritage.