The Belle Isle Bath House was new when this photo was taken. A street view and floorplan (below) were included in the March 1910 issue of The Brickbuilder. It replaced a bath house built in 1894. Good thing they did not demolish the 1894 bath house, because it soon reopened to handle overcrowding. This new bath house, designed by Stratton & Baldwin, could handle 20,000 people a day. In 1921 beach and bath house attendance topped 533,000. By 1940 it had dropped to 110,000.

In the floorplan, at left is a free changing room for men and boys. This has a roof over it while the Men's and Women's courts are open to the sky. Males could rent a locker or dressing room. Dressing rooms were available for females. Bathing suits were available to either sex for free when you rented a dressing room. There are a limited number of showers for men and boys; and none for women. One room is labeled - hospital.

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Not a fat kid among them.

Noticeable how thin every boy on the beach is - a contemporary beach photo would likely look very different.

You’d think I wouldn’t ask such an anti-historical question after following Shorpy for over a dozen years, but here goes. Would it not occur to a single boy on a hot summer day to take off the top part of his bathing costume? Would it be such a crime to expose the unclad upper part of the body? Would some elder immediately demand that you put your shirt back on, young man, before I come over there and put it on you myself (followed by a flurry of cuffs about the head to punish such impertinence and immodesty)?

[Male shirtlessness on public beaches in this country was pretty much nonexistent until the 1930s -- either by law, custom or (in this case) B.I.B.H. rules. - Dave]

No obesity in those days.

Used as a prison after the 1967 riots, it was torn down in 1973, except for part of one wall shown here:

What coinage do you suppose it took circa 1910 to release those locker keys the boys have around their necks? Penny? Nickel? Dime? Would the lockers "take" Canadian coins (if there were such equivalent coins at that time)? Would want to have a nickel or two left over for the Nickelodeon later on.

[Bathers deposited five cents into the hand of the locker attendant. - Dave]