On the hottest, sunniest day of Memorial Day weekend, the Fort Worth swimmers flinging themselves via trapeze into the cool water of Burger’s Lake are an indication that already summer is in full swing. Now open for its 96th consecutive season, the thirty-acre park and spring-fed lake show few signs of wear and continue to figure strongly in Texans’ memories. Visitors of all ages come to perform flips from the diving boards, rest under canopies, and, yes, eat burgers.

While the park’s association with the sandwich is long-standing (a 1940 advertisement boasted of “excellent hamburgers,” and they’re still offered at the concession stand), few are aware that it is named for Hugo Burger, a traveling salesman who bought the property, then operating as Paul Schneider’s Goldfish Hatchery, in

See Full Page