Canonsburg's Town Park began as the property of a Scottish horticulturist, William Crosbie. He had a nursery there in the late 1860s and owned the land, a bit more than 18 acres, at his death in 1911.
A local entrepreneur bought the property from Crosbie's heirs for the coal rights. He sold the surface to the Canonsburg Improvement Association, Limited, in 1917. The thirty associates each put up $180. They were reimbursed when the borough acquired the park in 1919. However, developing the park would have required the expenditure of money, a thing the town fathers tended to avoid. Instead, borough council leased the acreage for use as a cow pasture.
The local newspaper, the Daily Notes, complained that the citizens were being deprived of the enjoyment of their park. The councilmen, pragmatic civic leaders that they were, devised a solution to the newspaper's complaint. They would sell the park and use the proceeds to pave streets.
The photograph above shows the Crosbie House as it looks today.
There was an extensive renovation project on the house, which brought it back to its current condition. The Crosbie House is located at the entrance to the park, for all to see.
By this time the Improvement Association was no more, but a civic organization with an unlikely name, the Hungry Club, came to the rescue. In December 1923 the club appeared before council with plans to build a dam in the park for swimming in the summer and ice skating in the winter. The cost was to be $271, of which the Hungry Club had $185 in hand. Council not only gave permission, but also committed itself to making up the shortfall.
The dam was not built. The reason may have been one pointed out in the newspaper. The impounded water would have covered the only level ground in the park. It was suggested that the dam be moved upstream, a shelter house built, and a well drilled to provide potable water.
A well was drilled near the tenants' house (the Crosbie House) rather than by some picnic tables that had been put in, and the tenants would not let the public use the water. As for the dam, the result was a wading pool for children, a few inches deep. Repeated requests for a shelter house and playground equipment elicited a plea of poverty from council.
The borough's strained resources were real, but the cause was a multitude of expensive projects in the mid-1920s: a garbage incinerator ($20,000), property on Pike Street for a new Borough Building ($41,000), an American-LaFrance fire engine ($21,000), a new fire house and jail ($35,000), and sewer construcion ($15,000). A referendum was needed to increase the indebtedness.
The referendum was one of two put before the people in 1927: $12,000 for the park and $75,000 for paving streets. The amount for the park included $2,000 for a shelter house and $5,000 to purchase additional acreage. The street referendum passed, but Town Park lost, badly: 427 in favor, 1137 opposed.
Two years later, in 1929, the Great Depression struck. If anything, this should have derailed any thought of improving Town Park. But this is not what happened. Canonsburg's scruffy, hilly Town Park filled a need in the depression economy.
Families were hard-pressed to provide food and clothing for their children. Entertainment was not a major item in their budgets. Though Canonsburg's industrial smokestacks continued to pollute and freight cars, cranes and whistles continued to screech, a lot of men were out of work and others were receiving lower wages.
In 1931, the Chartiers Valley Central Labor Union donated and installed more than $300 worth of playground equipment: a see-saw, swings, and sliding boards. The following year, the county Poor Board paid eleven men to construct wadding pools, three wood-burning fireplaces, picnic tables and benches, and a mushball field. In 1933, two tennis courts were constructed, but the big news was that a new federal program, the Work Recovery Act, had money for projects like the long-delayed swimming pool. However, the government would expect 70% of the cost, estimated at $50,000, to be repaid.
The possibilities expanded later in the summer when another of President Roosevelt's alphabet soup of government agencies was formed. This one, the Civil Work Authority, a branch of the National Industrial Recovery Association, would provide money that did not have to be repaid. The estimated cost more than doubled.
The Roosevelt administration's object was to create the maximum number of jobs, not to carry out the project in the most efficient manner. Digging by hand a 100 by 200 foot swimming pool with an adjacent pit for filtration equipment was the ideal sort of operation. A bath house, which would require contractors and skilled labor, was not included.
The 2 photos above shows the Town Park "grand opening". The picture was taken from the hill facing the pool. The picture to the right is the same day, but was taken from the hill along what is today the "sunning area".
Men were allowed just 30 hours a week, and the borough had to supply the picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. There would be no steam-shovels or tractors on a CWA project. The first shift started at 7 a.m. on Monday, January 22, 1934, worked five hours, and their places were taken by a second shift. Five hours a day, six days a week, 90 men earned a dollar an hour.
In a month the site was leveled and Crosbie Run was enclosed in 125 feet of storm sewer. The CWA then expired and the project was stopped in April. A new agency, the Relief Works Division of the Emergency Relief Administration, was to take over. For weeks, nothing happened. Then, 20 men were assigned. The swimming pool was the largest project in the county, but in April 1934, fifty men at most were on the job.
The delay was understandable, this being a government project, but the selection of workmen was galling. Canonsburg had 375 men on the relief rolls, able to work, but most of the men hired for the swimming pool were from the county seat. The problem soon was solved by another halt.
The RWD was unhappy with the speed at which the project was proceeding. Canonsburg was instructed to get a steam -shovel, and in May a three-fourths cubic yard shovel was hired and moved to the site. The shovel made quick work of the excavation and by June some 65 workmen were building forms to pour the concrete. In mid-June, 100 workers were on the job and a two-stack gasoline concrete mixer was putt-putting its way through a mountain of sand, cement, and gravel. A workman would push the concrete to the form in a wheelbarow, dump it, and return for another load. It was hard work, and the RWD day was eight hours long, though only three days a week. The ten-inch thick walls were poured at a rate of 100 feet a day.
In August, concreting of the pool basin was complete, but the filtration plant and the sidewalk had not been started. Again work stopped. The RWD was being investigated and all its projects were stopped. Data was requested, then re-requested on different forms. The state board of health got into the act and required Canonsburg to apply for a permit. Then, a director of relief announced that a new system for determining eligibility was needed.
The project was shut down in mid-August. In mid-October, Harrisburg sent the wrong health permit and seemingly was unable to rectify the situation. It was mid-November, after nearly three months' delay, before the project got started again. The wage rate under the RWD was a dollar an hour for skilled workmen, but only fifty cents for common labor. The work rules allowed truck drivers to receive sixty cents an hour. On March 1, 1935, the project again shut down, this time because the agency was out of funds.
Having experience in project delays by this time, the borough council assembled its own work force to keep things moving. Delinquent taxpayers were put to work constructing footers for the bath house. The RWD workers returned March 18th, and the borough's crew were put to work on the streets.
The filtration system was installed and the sidewalk laid in April. All that was needed was water in the pool and a bath house to change in. Council learned that money probably would be available for a bath house in the future, so they decided to build a temporary structure and build masonry walls around it when relief money became available.
As for water, a scheme to use salt water in the pool had been part of the plan nearly from the beginning, and the plumbing was designed for salt water. Around the turn of the century there had been an oil boom and the hills in and around Canonsburg had bristled with derricks. A number of wells in the Town Park area had hit salt water at 1,300 feet. One was on the hill above the pool. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the town fathers were told the well could be opened up and the town could have the rare attraction of a salt water swimming pool.
The date for opening the pool was set for the Fourth of July. signs pointing to the salt water pool were placed on poles around town. The salt concentration of the well beneath Town Park was about 5%, but a back-up line from the municipal water supply was in place and the salt water could be diluted to the desired 2.7%. All that needed to be done was to plug the well beneath the salt water to prevent oil contamination and put in a new casing.
Meanwhile, the borough had begun a temporary bath house. Then, three weeks before the scheduled opening, word was received that RWD money had been found. The bath house could not be finished, but it would be usable. Masons putting up walls were closely followed by electricians installing light fixtures. Shelves for wire baskets were constructed, and plumbers put in showers and rest rooms.
With a week to go, the drillers on the hill were at 1,125 feet. It would take two days to fill the pool, but they were nearly there. Then, on June 29th, the cable snapped and the drilling tools dropped to the bottom of the hole. The Daily Notes reported on July 1st: "Water will be turned on into the city's swimming pool tonight. But the only salt content thereof, it is feared, will be the salt in the tears of the construction men at the pool and members of the borough council who were hoping to have salt water available."
On July 3rd, the day before the opening, the 650,000 gallon pool was 150,000 gallons short of being full. A fire engine pumped from a hydrant on Jefferson Avenue, above the pool, from four o'clock in the afternoon to midnight. Then, an excess of water nearly prevented the pool's opening: it began to rain. The roof of the bath house was unfinished and patrons' clothing in the baskets would get soaked. A tarpau;in solved the problem, and just two hours late, the swimming pool opened for business. About 700 splashed in the cold water while a thousand or more watched the spectacle from the surrounding hills.
Daily admission was 25 cents for an adult, and 10 cents for children. Over the next few weeks, crowds continued to pack the pool, which remained salt free. A bad section of casing in the well was found to have been the cause of the problem. After weeks of fruitless effort, council called a halt to the project and the old well was capped. Salt water was not necessary; the pool was a success without it.
The pool closed for the season August 31st with the bath house still incomplete. Yet another Roosevelt agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) took over and authorized the completion of the bath house. Also, approved were funds for the general improvement of the park and the construction of a new street (North Street) into the park. Construction of the long-desired shelter house was still in the future, but it would come.
Note: people have been saying our cords are off. We are sorry for this but are unable to afford a handheld GPS. We are using my Garmin Car GPS. This is also why we try to give a detailed hint just in case.
WayPoint- N 40° 15.801 W 080° 11.517 Thank you Grayhawke