Rowboats drift lazily across the glassy surface of Clarks Lake on a summer afternoon — a scene so idyllic it practically hums with the sound of oars and laughter. This hand-colored pre-linen view captures the Pleasant View Hotel and its lakeside pavilion in Columbia Township, Jackson County, Michigan, alive with Edwardian-era vacationers in their white summer dress. The hotel's name is spelled out in decorative lettering across the grassy hillside, a charming marketing flourish typical of resort postcards of the era. Published by local Jackson, Michigan photographer E. E. Thayer and printed in Germany — the gold standard of chromolithographic quality before World War I — this card was mailed on August 14 (postmark reads Clarks Lake, Mich.) by a sender signing only initials J.W.R., who dashed off a cheerful note to Edna in Paper Mills, New York: "We have just got home and have had a fine trip." Clarks Lake (later known as Clark Lake) became one of southern Michigan's most popular inland resort destinations in the early twentieth century, drawing city dwellers from Jackson and beyond by rail and later by automobile.