Charlie Auer, 75, and his sister Christine Hebert, 79, preside over a piece of Burlington that connects the City's early days to its latest. The Auer Family Boat House has seen it all - from Depression-era families fishing for food to condo developers exploring possibilities for gentrification.

Sometimes called Burlington's Bayou or the Yankee version of Catfish Row, or during the Prohibition years, Hell's Kitchen of Vermont, the land on Burlington's northwest corner, where the Winooski River meets Lake Champlain, is most commonly known as the Mouth of the River, or simply The Mouth.

Charlie, Christine, and their older siblings, Vernon and Julia, grew up spending summers there, leaving their home downtown on Lakeview Terrace. Their father, Charlie, Sr. and mother, Ida, bought the river land and an existing small shack in the early 1920's. During the summers, they filled in the swampy bits, moved the shack to more solid ground, and added other rooms. The boat house took its current shape by 1952.

For almost 80 years, the boat house has been a gathering place for fishermen to rent boats and buy bait, snacks, and cigarettes. For many years, it was also a center for Saturday night dances and lively music. In the 1930's many Burlington families came to the Mouth of the River to fish and catch frogs. In those years, Charlie, Sr. worked two days a week at G.S. Blodgett for $2 a day, hunting, fishing, and building his rental boats on the off days. He was the patriarch of a family of 16 then, including his own four children and his brother-in-law's family. In the 1940's, with 10,000 G.I.'s stationed in the Burlington area, the Auers welcomed the soldiers. The men cooked their catch on an outside stove and came into the boat house for hard tack and coffee. Sometimes Ida offered sauerkraut. "We never had an empty coffee pot," says Christine. "We didn't have a waitress. People cooked their fish, took dishes, served themselves, and then washed their dishes."

After the war, when gas rationing was over, the regular dances began. Ida played the piano. Christine and Julia played that and violin, accordion, and saxophone. People brought their own mouth organs and guitars. The Auers hosted wedding receptions and Saturday night square dances. Charlie, Sr. supplied the home brew. He died at 86 in 1981. Ida ran the boat house until her death at 98 in 1993. "People called her "Old Duck," says Christine, because she wore duck boots with her dresses."

Stepping into the boat house today feels like stepping back in time. Although you can buy modern-day hot dogs, soda, candy, and ice cream, artifacts from Burlington's past surround you. The old upright piano is from the long-gone Strong Theater, where Ida played it during silent movies. The piano bench is part of the old still that Charlie, Sr. used to make his home brew for festivities at the boat house and at the German Club on Crowley Street. The rafters hold gigs used for catching frogs and pickerel in the 1930's and old fishing poles made from slim tree branches. The counter and display case with its beveled glass edges come from an old country store in Cambridge, Vermont. Christine points out the lighter pole, which her grandfather Benoit used to light the gas street lamps on Lakeview Terrace. Attached is a can, which carried the fuel - whale oil. The cash register can total only up to $5.99. "If you spend more," says Christine, "you have to go out and come back in."

History at the Mouth of the River predates the Auers. The area was a cross roads for ancient Indian waterways. Speculation has it that a French-Catholic mission once stood on the land. At the turn of the twentieth century, John Derway, a prominent local farmer, built the Riverside Park Hotel for the use of tourists, fishermen, and duck-hunters. After he sold it in 1903, it developed a seedy notoriety and burned down in 1913. One story has it that the hotel was burned down by the wives of the railroad men who frequented the place to gamble and generally carouse. During Prohibition years, the area saw nightly boat runs to the Canadian border.

The latest historical marker for the Mouth was August 1, 2004, Charlie's birthday and the official opening of the Winooski River bicycle bridge. Charlie remembers when four trains a day used the railroad bed which now carries the Burlington bike path. For several summers before the new bridge was constructed, the Local Motion bike ferry operated with the use of Charlie's docks. "We couldn't have done it without him," says Chapin Spenser of Local Motion. "The bike ferry enabled us to get the bridge built," says Brian Costello. "Without Charlie, neither might have happened."

Today, the Mouth of the River is quiet. Many of the neighboring houses are spruced up, reflecting Burlington's growing real estate values. Christine points out a small sea-plane taking off across the lake. One of her neighbors uses it to get to work, she says. Charlie and Christine keep the boat house open from the first Saturday in May (the start of the wall-eye fishing season) through the end of September, from 8 am to 8pm. "There's no money in this, and taxes are forcing us out," says Charlie. But the two agree that they do not want to sell the land. They want to live on it until they die, and they hope that eventually it will become a park.

How to get to the Auer Family Boat House

• By bicycle: Take the Burlington bike path north to the Winooski River bridge. The boat house is on the left of the path just before the bridge.
• By car: Drive north along North Avenue until it ends with a left turn to the lake. Bearing left, cross the bike path into the Mouth community. Follow the road right to the boat house.

Barbara Leitenberg writes on senior issues for the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging. This article originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press.

60+ Column Archive