100 years of Larson Boats

The year was 1913, when Paul Larson, the son of Swedish immigrants, wanted to earn some extra money by building boats in rural Little Falls in the US state of Michigan. "Experience" was available: He had already put together his first fishing boat from the wood of an old barn at the age of eleven. Now, at 19, he designed a "real" wooden boat for duck hunting on the numerous lakes in the area. The finished double-ender obviously made an impression: the first orders were not long in coming.

In order to be able to deliver quickly, Larson bought a woodworking machine with the money he had earned from trapping - now nothing stood in the way of series production. With single-cylinder outboards at the stern, the first Larsons were soon chugging across Michigan's lakes, and what started small developed over the years into one of the longest-established recreational boatyards in America. Larson 24 models in six different series, from bowriders just under 5 metres to cabin cruisers around 9 metres long.