In the early 1890's leading citizens lived close to the central city, and the booming manufacturing plants were belching heat and smoke over the area. In 1892 prominent Erie Citizens decided to build a country club on the western shores of the bay, near enough to the city to be reached by horse and carriage, yet remote from the congestion of the city. This group leased property on what is now the western part of South Shore Drive near Massassaugua Point, erected a club house and organized The Kahkwa Club. The name Kahkwa was selected at the suggestion of the late Henry Catlin, "that having been the name of a tribe of Indians that frequented these shores when the country was a forest." The early club was purely a social club.