A view of Lake Mishnock, in West Greenwich, from the property of James and Susan Fontaine. Susan’s father, John I. Albro, had owned much of the land around the crystal-clear, spring-fed lake. Below, Town Administrator Kevin A. Breene, a grandson of Albro, reminisces about summers there.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

WEST GREENWICH It was a humid summer day in 1929, a day so hot even the breeze off Lake Mishnock couldn’t cool it off. John I. Albro drove his truck up to the lake and hauled out a washtub filled with ice, Moxie soda and other refreshments.

He sold the soft drinks to dozens of people who were swimming in Lake Mishnock or camping in the dense white-pine grove that surrounded it. The Albro family owned a sizable swath of the land. Every summer, recall two of Albro’s grandsons, Daniel Albro, 51, and Town Manager Kevin Breene, 50, people from other parts of the state, would come bringing friends by the carloads. “They [our grandparents] were always worried that the people coming were going to burn the forest. They would come with their campfires and he [my grandfather] would have to come down.” Albro said. His grandfather had a strategy he’d hope would keep trespassers away. “He said, ‘I’ll fix them. I’ll charge them [for parking].’ ”

But the people willingly paid. “And it took off from there,” Breene said.

For several decades, summer vacationers from the cities and smaller suburbs flocked to Lake Mishnock, off Route 3 near the Coventry line. In its golden period, thousands, mainly mill workers and their families, came to the lake. They wanted an affordable escape, some coming for the day, many staying from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Today the vacationers are mostly gone, though some families still live there all year long. A main barn, called the Mishnock Barn, is now used for country line-dancing events. As revelers of the former summer colony plan to gather next month for the annual Lake Mishnock reunion, remaining owners reminisce about the lake community’s heyday.

ON A RECENT sparkling summer day, Breene stands on a pier that extends into the deepest part of the lake. He can see clear down to native flora that grow there. The lake is named for an Indian settlement and its leader Chief Misnick Breene said he can trace his own family line in the area back to the 1600s.

“What’s unique is it’s a natural aquifer. That’s one of the cleanest [lakes] in the state,” Breene said. He said Mishnock is really a pond that people just started coming to one day from about 1929 through, maybe, the 1960s.

Breene’s aunt and uncle, Susan and James Fontaine, still live in a cabin with a small man-made beach right on the lake.

“People were coming before anything was developed. There were starting little fires,” said Susan Fontaine, who is John I. Albro’s daughter. “He and my mother brought little bottles of soda. We started charging them. It was a quarter.”

The family built a stand to sell the soda that eventually became a snack bar. The Albros added an arcade, a merry-go-round, a few diving boards, a slide, floating piers, boats for rent and a roller-skating rink. The family, which was in the lumber business, built the main barn and a bathhouse and started circulating a hand-drawn map with the slogan, “Come for a season, come for a day.”

People fished and camped. During the 1940s, summer dwellers began leasing plats from the Albro family and buying lumber to build cabins around the lake. At one point there were 50 to 60 cabins circling the water and into the woods. The lake was a summer refuge for many people who lived in “triple-decker housing,” in the cities and the denser eastern end of Coventry, Breene said.

“You just didn’t hop into your car and drive to the beach, like we do today. [Our family] started selling hot dogs, hamburger and French fries. He built the roller rink,” Breene said.

That was a huge draw, the Fontaines said, but Albro said in those days fresh-water bathing was the in thing.

“The lake itself is a spring-fed lake. It keeps the water clean. Years ago fresh-water bathing was in style. They never went to the oceans to swim because it was salt water,” Albro said

Albro recalls fondly the merry-go-round, the serene quiet of the woods and the thousands of people.

At the age of 10, “I was actually running the merry-go-road, which you couldn’t do today,” Albro said.

“You didn’t have the sound of [Route] 95 in background. You were in the sticks. It was a nice clientele back then. If you had good weather in July, you’d have 2,000 coming on a Sunday.”

Susan Fontaine remembers a publication circulating about all the happenings at the lake.

“We called it, ‘The Snoop,’ the gossip about the campers — who’s who going out on the lake. It was a great community,” she said.

But things changed during the late ’60s, when more people began migrating to the ocean beaches. Some families who owned cabins at Lake Mishnock started staying year-round, adding on to those smaller cabins, making them “high risers,” Breene said. The Albros began selling some of their land. A developer built more homes to the west of the community. Throughout the 1970s, the family hosted country music concerts, held music festivals and even drew a few marquee names.

The ownership stayed in the family, eventually falling into Daniel Albro’s hands. The arcade and merry-go-round closed and eventually the snack bar was boarded up, the diving boards removed.

All that remains open is the Mishnock Barn, which still hosts country music events and dancing lessons Monday and Wednesday evenings, Albro said.

“It will be 30 years since I took over. Occasionally we have bands. We sell water and ice tea. It’s a totally different type of clientele,” Albro said.

There are a couple of beach associations, he said. Most of the land is privately owned or people have access rights. On Clubhouse Road, there is still some public access to the lake front.

“Who knows what the future will bring, as I grow older, as my kids get older,” said Albro, who has five sons.

“I have had people interested in putting in condos. Some days I wish I had, and other days I’m glad I didn’t.”

lsparks@projo.com