This week’s photo shows some of the summer cottages on River Beach Drive from the Niagara River perspective. Note the proximity of the water to the cottages. The area was prone to flooding every spring. This section of the waterfront had always been a marshy area of town. The Niagara Harbour and Dock Company attempted to fill some of this area in when they dug out the marine basin in the 1830s. The two-storey hotel to the left, behind the cottages, was built in 1860 and was known as the Lakeview House. Over the years, the Lakeview was renamed the Riverside and then the Harbour Inn. The building burned down in the late 1990s and is now the site of riverfront condominiums on Melville Street.