In Minnesota, the familiar practice of going to the lake grew in part from nineteenth-century public policy. By the 1870s, heavy commercial hunting had reduced game populations to alarmingly low levels, and the legislature responded by banning market hunting, helping spark a dramatic rise in recreational hunting and fishing. Outdoor enthusiasts from across the Upper Midwest then traveled to Minnesota's lakes, fields, and woods, where local residents first offered simple lodging and meals, then developed cabins with docks, boat rentals, and icehouses as demand increased. From these beginnings, Minnesota's resort industry emerged and expanded into full-service destinations for hunters, anglers, and other tourists. One of the oldest began in the 1890s on Bay Lake, eighteen miles east of Brainerd, when Joseph and Josephone Ruttger shifted from farming to tourism, charging five dollars a week for room, board, boat rental, and horse-and-buggy transportation to and from the railway station, and built a thriving business that remained one of Minnesota's best-known vacation spots. The expansion of Minnesota's highway system in the 1920s made travel to the lakes easier and gave the resort industry a major boost, while scenic byways such as the Great River Road continued that tradition.