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The Malta Boat Club, or Barge Club as it was known in its earliest days, was organized on February 22, 1860 by seven members of the Minnehaha Lodge of the Sons of Malta. The founders were the four Illman brothers, Charles, Julian, Samuel and Harold, and William H. Lees, James Osborne and Lewis F. Berger.
In June of the year of 1860, when the new barge, the Minnehaha, named after the lodge, was launched, a floating house was built for its accommodation and moored to the Washington Avenue wharf on the Delaware. The club's seven members then embarked upon a rather strange excursion, considering the North-South tensions at the time. They headed southward, around and up the Chesapeake bay to Elk River, and remained for a week, much to the delight and wonder of the Marylanders. In 1861, they made a similar trip to Port Deposit and Havre de Grace, on the Susquehanna.

In the latter part of the year 1860, the club met with a number of accidents, the boat being run into several times and the members being obliged to swim for their lives. This had the tendency to keep the men off the river on dark nights, and the intervals between the trips became longer. Within a few years, interest flagged and finally for want of a crew the boat was laid away in the floating house on the Delaware.

On June 1, 1863, however, the club was reorganized and seven new members added to the rolls. The boathouse was removed from the Delaware and anchored at the foot of Fairmount Avenue on the Schuylkill. Until 1865, the house lay on shore above the steamboat landing. In February of that year, the aspiring Malta men became dissatisfied with their narrow accommodations and opened negotiations with the Excelsior Club, which resulted in the purchase of their house and the outrigger barge Intrepid. In March the old house was abandoned and Malta moved up the street to its new quarters.

In 1883, the clubhouse was significantly expanded in a joint project with Vesper Boat Club, building new boat bays, substantial club meeting rooms, and locker rooms for each organization on a second floor. This structure would remain intact until 1901, when Malta again responded to burgeoning membership with the construction of a third floor, an extra room on the second floor, and augmentation of the downriver boat bay. This is the building that stands in the present day.

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The earliest known photograph of the Malta/Vesper building, prior to 1883. This may have been the original Excelsior Club, or this building may have been constructed on its site.

The Malta/Vesper building, in 1883, decorated for the 25th anniversary of the Schuylkill Navy. By this point in time, the extended window room has been added to the Malta side. It is not known whether the Vesper side also constructed one.

By 1885, Malta and Vesper have tripled the size of their facilities, adding a waterfront addition that towers above the rest of Boathouse Row. The building is a nearly symmetrical duplex, with each club owning two boat bays and significant social/meeting rooms.

This photograph from 1940, shows the Malta side of the building in its modern form. Additions completed in 1901 added a third floor and additional depth and length to the boat bay. Additions made to Vesper during the same periods did not match, and the buildings, much like their collective memberships, began to diverge from each other.

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A six-oared barge from Malta poses in front of Boathouse Row. The Undine Barge Club, West Philadelphia Boat Club, and College Boat Club are visible in the background.