Moore Boat Works

Twin City Rapid Transit Company hired Moore to design and fabricate the wooden hulls for its famous streetcar boats

Moore Boat Works, founded in 1879 by Royal C. Moore on the shores of Wayzata Bay, became one of Lake Minnetonka’s earliest and most influential boat-building shops. Moore, a skilled craftsman from New York, built everything the growing lake communities needed — rowboats, canoes, sailboats, launches, and custom yachts. His yard helped support the boom in tourism and recreation that transformed the lake in the late 19th century.

The company’s most significant contribution came in the early 1900s, when the Twin City Rapid Transit Company hired Moore to design and fabricate the wooden hulls for its famous streetcar boats. These six “Express Boats,” launched in 1906, connected communities around the lake and served as a floating extension of the Twin Cities streetcar system. Their construction marked Moore Boat Works’ peak influence and linked Wayzata to one of Minnesota’s most distinctive transportation experiments.

Moore sold the business in 1912, and in 1929 it merged into Minnetonka Boat Works, which continued building boats — including wartime “storm boats” and later fiberglass motorboats — on the same site. Boatbuilding finally ended there in 1985, but the historic Boatworks building still stands, repurposed for modern commercial use.

Though its docks no longer launch new vessels, Moore Boat Works left a lasting mark on Lake Minnetonka, shaping both its boating culture and its early transportation history.