Color postcard (14 x 9 cm.) with a view of ten children swimming in Cut-Off Lake in Omaha, Nebraska. Some are standing on the edge of the lake removing their clothes and the others are splashing in the water. Title at top right is "Where We Used To Bathe Cut Off Lake, Omaha, Neb." with the number 11017 printed over the title.
Cut Off Lake was formed after an 1877 flood that moved a portion of the Missouri River to the east, leaving a small part of Iowa on the Nebraska side of the river and creating this lake out of a newly cut off section of the Missouri. The lake was also known as Lake Nakoma. On July 1906 the name of the lake was changed to Carter Lake in honor of Levi Carter of the Carter White Lead Works of Omaha after one of the park's board members complained that "Cut Off" was suggestive of "no-man's land, prize fights or an amputated leg." In 1908 Carter Lake was became a part of the Omaha park system. Source: Cummins, H. J. "Levi Carter Park (Cut Off Lake) Act of Nature Formed Mecca for Water Play". Omaha World-Herald, August 7, 1985, p.1.
