Pool postcard: Highland Park, Meridian, Mississippi

I believe this pool still exists. Below is a photo from the website of the Meridian Swim Club:

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Municipal pool, Grand Island, Nebraska



Postmarked Sep 13, 1953

 These days Grand Island is home to about 49 000 people. Its most famous son was Henry Fonda. His bio says he was a keen swimmer. Maybe that's Henry in the front there!!!

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Peony Park, Omaha, Nebraska

Sadly, this one has gone, and is a strip mall (shopping mall).

From Wikipedia:

Peony Park was an amusement park, founded in 1919. It closed in 1994.

Segregation
The park was strictly segregated until 1963. Earlier, in 1955, the State of Nebraska took Peony Park to district court over its segregated swimming policy. In State of Nebraska v. Peony Park, the court found that under Nebraska Civil Rights Law Peony Park discriminated against African American swimmers at the Amateur Athletic Union Swimming Meet held at the park on August 27, 1955. During that event, two African American participants were barred from the meet because Peony Park barred them from pool. On September 7, 1955, the court fined Peony Park $50 and costs of the trial. Additional civil suits were settled out of court.
Continuing racial tension in Omaha led to the youth activists leading protests which brought down the color barrier at the park and added to the civil rights movement in the city. The Omaha Star newspaper made a name for itself during this period, mixing "light news" and entertainment with articles about the incident, segregationist policies around the city and the ongoing trial.

Water slides and pool - pool added 1926
The pool and surrounding sand beach occupied 4.5 acres (18,000 m²) of the park. Holding approximately five million gallons of filtered, chlorinated water, the seven hundred foot-long pool was supplied by spring water from artesian wells. The depth ranged from one foot to 10 feet (3.0 m).

Peony Park was home to three water slides. In 1983 there was an endurance competition in which the winner, a student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, slid down the four-story water slide at Peony Park 1,710 times in 87 hours and 19 minutes. For winning he won $1,300, a 1950 vintage Coke machine, a moped, waterbed, stereo and other prizes offered by radio station Sweet 98 (KQKQ-FM), sponsor of the event.

Peony Park Today
The park was put up for sale in 1993 due to dwindling revenue and high operational costs. Many attempts to save the park and keep it open failed. The park had too short of a season and not a big enough population base to make a profit. A commercial land developer bought the land with plans to develop it into a shopping center. The park officially closed after the 1994 summer season.

Today, Peony Park is a strip mall with restaurants, a bank, and a grocery store. The only remaining structure from the original park still standing today is the Keno parlor and a short section of the original fence surrounding the park, left by the property owners as a tribute.

Pool postcard: Municipal pool, Manchester , New Hampshire

This pool, called Dupont Pool, still exists and is still a municipal pool, open during the summer.

Here are some more recent photos from this site.

Pool postcard: Allegheny State Park, New York

From the diving platform, this appears to be a more formal pool, but resembling an area called the 'Old Mud Hole'. I found the pictures below at the site Allegany State Park Historical Society. Note that the postcard I have spells it "Allegheny". The photos below are labelled early 1930s, and it looks to be the same era as the postcard.

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Water ballet, Jones Beach State Park, Long Island. New York

Esther Williams, eat your heart out!

This pool still exists. Apparently it was closed in the summer of 2009 due to economic cutbacks. Up to 10 000 people a day were using it on a weekend day. By 2010 the other pool was also closed. Read more here.

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Watkins Glen State Park, New York

Here's a You Tube video of the pool

Pool postcard: Riverside Park, Minot North Dakota

The Minot Visitors and Conention Centre does not list this under the city's recreational swimming facilities, so I guess it doesn't exist any more.

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Coney Island, Cincinnati, Ohio

The description on the card reads:

"Coney Island, a pleasure resort, is on the Ohio River....its recirculating swimming pool is the largest of its kind."

This pool, called the Sunlite Pool was built in 1925, and measures 200 x 401 feet. It still exists, as can be seen at this link.

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Navarre Park, Toledo, Ohio

In 2010 it was announced that the Navarre Park pool would open at a date later than other Toledo pools. There seemed to be some controversy about pools in the city, with some being damaged, according to the Toledo Blade.  Anyway, I guess this means that a pool still exists in Navarre Park.




I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Idora Park, Youngstown, Ohio

The message on the reverse is dated July 9, 1942.

Idora Park was an amusement park built by Youngstown Park and Falls Street Railway Company and opened in 1899. 

The swimming pool was filled in in the 1950s and the space used for children's rides.

The amusement park went into decline in the 1970s when one of Youngstown's largest steel mills closed. In 1984 it was devastated by fore, and closed. Another fire in 2001 was its final chapter. The site is owned by a Pentecostal church.


I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Public swimming pool, Erie Pennsylvania

The reverse of the card shows that it was postmarked at Erie Oct ? 1910.

The message reads:

Erie, Pa Oct 2.

Dear cousin Paulina and all, I will drop a line hoping this finds you people well. We are having nice weather here so far. Helen has been out of school for two weeks but expects to go tomorrow. Love from us to you all. cousin Tracie & all.

Addressee:

Miss Paulina Eggert
Sag ?? East Side
547 south 12th
Michigan

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Hershey Park swimming pool, Hershey Pennsylvania

The information on the reverse of the card reads:

"Hershey teaches its employees not only how to work but how to play. In Hershey Park there is ecevry facility for indoor and outdoor sport. The Hershey Park pool, with its fifty-foot coaster, will accommodate several thousand bathers."

Hershey Park (now called Hersheypark) was founded in 1907 by Milton S. Hershey, as a leisure park for the employees of the Hershey Chocolate Company. It is now a full scale amusement park.

On this blog, Hershey Community Archives, we learn that the first concrete pool was constructed in 1911, and a few years later the pool was enlarged the wooden toboggan ride, visible in the postcard was added. The postcard seems to date from that era.

In 1929 a new pool complex (circular baby pool, diving poool, swimming pool and wading pool) was added. From the pool you could hear the great bands in the adjacent Ballroom - the likes of Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Harry James.

The pool was closed following the 1971 summer season. Today all that remains is an ornamental lighthouse.

I think this is also an interesting artefact from the days of "corporate towns", when the company provided for the welfare of its employees, rather along the lines of Robert Owen's early vision in New Lanark, or the Port Sunlight (built by the Lever Borthers of Sunlight Soap fame) in England.

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

Pool postcard: Community swimming pool, Farquhar Park, York, Pennsylvania

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you! At the International Swimming Hall of Fame website, I learned the following about this pool:

"The Farquhar Park Pool opened Thursday, July 8, 1922, in York, Pennsylvania. The Community Swimming Pool Association, a private group, was the owner. Following the opening of the swimming pool, The White Rose Amusement Park opened adjacent to it, long before Disney World, Six Flags, Hersheypark and other gigantic amusement havens of the current age.

The park had everything an amusement park required -- plus a huge dancing facility, White Rose Crystal Ball Room. Within the open-air structure was a restaurant. No bars in those days of prohibition. The dance hall was oval-shaped with a high ceiling.  Top flight orchestras provided music as the big band era was just getting under way.

In the late 1940’s, the pool was at the center of a racial controversy, as African Americans and other non-whites sought equal access to public areas.  Rather than allow non-whites to swim, community leaders chose to close the pool. "

I found that in 2007 it was operated by the YMCA, so guess it must have re-opened at some stage! I found a subsequent (undated) article in the York Daily Record which stated that "The $9.1 million YMCA Graham Aquatic Center, which replaces York's Farquhar Park Pool, will open June 12."

Pool postcard: 'Swimming Pool, City Park, Parkersburg, West Virginia'

I collect vintage postcards of swimming pools. I plan to post one a day as far as possible. If you know any of these places, especially the fate of the pool, I'd love to hear from you!

This site tells me the following (dated June 12, 2007)

"Eager swimmers only have a couple of weeks until they can dive into the newly renovated City Park Pool.

This is the first renovations on the Parkersburg pool since it opened in 1937.

The bath house has new shower fixtures, a new roof, and a fresh coat of paint.

The concrete floors now have a fresh face of tile.

Mayor Bob Newell says the renovations were much needed as leaks caused the pool to lose 3.6 million gallons of water during the summer season.

City Park Pool will be complete and ready for swimmers to splash in the first week of July. "

Blue Pool, Bermagui 2 Jan 2012