Cleveland Lake Before WWI

I don't have a date for this photo, but I'm sure it was taken well-before the 1920s when the Kempners & W. T. Eldridge began modernizing Sugar Land. (That modernization included dredging Oyster Creek & other prominent bodies of water in Sugar Land, like Cleveland Lake.) I think the current location of the Wood Street bridge (in front of the Auditorium) is just to the right of this view. The houses (seen faintly on the horizon) are on 2nd Street. They may not be permanent structures -- they may have been elaborate tents or light, wooden shacks with canvas roofs. All this is conjecture on my part.