Ok, so I am going to tell you guys I am still working towards ensuring that the Wayne Natatorium is remembered properly as something that is a part of not only the history of North Wayne and Radnor Township and Delaware County, but the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well. So as I told you all before, I submitted an application for a historical marker for the Wayne Natatorium in late 2008. I found out around late March that I wasn't out of the running, but I needed to submit more documentation. So I have. Here is what I wrote to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania folks at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission :

On June 10, 1895 a charter was granted by Acting Judge William B. Waddell, forming The Wayne Natatorium Association. An in ground swimming pool was then designed and constructed on a local "swimming hole", Kelly's Lake (a/k/a Kelly's Dam) in Wayne, Radnor Township, Delaware County.

Prior to construction,"Kelly's Lake" was a shallow pond fed by the Gulph Creek and several underground springs. The men who incorporated the Natatorium were prominent local businessmen John P. Wood, Richards H. Johnson,Christopher Fallon, Julius Bailey, T. Stewart Wood, Herman Wendell, & Frederick H. Treat.

The R.H. Johnson Co constructed a pool 500 ft long (equal to two football fields) by 100 ft wide. Francis Albert Gugert (1873-1939) was the architect who designed the clubhouse which contained a women's dressing room and living quarters for a manager and a men's dressing room built towards the middle point of the pool – a respectable Victorian distance away! Stock certificates were issued for the pool in $25 increments, good for a 1 year membership. The pool had a boardwalk on the south side, spectator benches on north side. The pool was fenced all the way around, and ranged in depth from 2 ft. to 8 ft. It must have been a dramatic site!

1. [The] “Natatorium, when built in 1895 at 500 ft. x 100 ft. was among the largest pools …”
   – Bruce Wigo, CEO International Swimming hall of Fame, Fort Lauderdale, FL
   (www.ishof.org 954-559-1622)

The pool and club opened formally with a grand gala in July 1895. At that gala, amateur swimmers from the Philadelphia Swimming Assn., the New York Athletic Club, Swarthmore College, and the University of PA were among the organizations present to bear witness.

On Saturday, August 24, 1895, the Atlantic Association of AAU of US held the 3rd annual swimming championships. According to the 1895 program, involved in the races that year was Professor E.J. Houston, President of the National Swimming Association, who was nationally and internationally recognized in the sport of swimming. Also present was the Captain of NSA, Arthur T. Kenney, the amateur champion swimmer who broke competitive swimming records in 1894. In addition, at the site of the Wayne Natatorium, the 4th Annual NSA Swimming Championships were held the following year on June 27, 1896.

It is absolutely amazing when you look today at the row of little houses that line both sides of Willow Avenue, that a little more than a century ago, national swim meets were held here.

It is also interesting to note, that the first Olympiad of the modern era in Athens, Greece in 1896 featured swimming for the first time. The event was for men only, and what is interesting is that officials had not wanted to spend the money for an actual pool, so the 1896 swim trials were held in the Bay of Zea off the Piraeus in April, 1896. So Wayne, PA had what the 1896 Greek Olympics, where swimming was introduced as an Olympic sport, did not. Even across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, nothing existed at the time to truly match the Wayne Natatorium.

While women were not welcomed as swim competitors at the 1896 summer Olympics, the Wayne Natatorium was perhaps forward thinking because women were allowed to swim. Inventories reflect bathing costumes and there was a women’s changing or locker room. At the end of the Victorian Era (unable to be definitively confirmed), women probably had their own specific swimming hours, and given the fact that genteel women of this era were overly modest (especially in public), this was perhaps a benign liberation in
the sense they were swimming in public, in the same place as men, although likely not at the same time. Undoubtedly, their memberships were through their husbands or their parents, judging from the common practice at other local clubs; women did not have club memberships, men did.

The late 19th century and the early 20th century saw women beginning to participate in public with men in physical fitness activities. Swimming and tennis were followed by golf and cycling crazes.

At the Wayne Natatorium, the first swim instructor was a man from Yorkshire named Charles Holroyd. The then champion mile swimmer of the world, George Kistler, succeeded Mr. Holryd. Kistler later went on in 1897 to organize water polo and swim teams at the University of PA. He drew crowds from all over for swim meets and instruction (from as far away as California), and at the time, this fantastic pool was undoubtedly yet another selling point to entice families to move to bucolic Wayne.

The Wayne Natatorium was used for swimming in summer, and skating in the winter, complete with carnivals under lights at night. The pool was the site of several annual national championships, starting within a month of opening. It was advertised as “the largest outside pool in the U.S., and possibly the world”.

For a few years, the pool was a huge success, and very popular in Wayne, which was one of Philadelphia's earliest commuter suburbs/planned communities, a suburb which also boasted a then very modern city steam-heat plant, and ice house nearby. Another selling point of the Natatorium was its close proximity to the Wayne Train Station.

Mother Nature prevailed and at the turn of the 20th century when there was a drought which forced the water company to drill artesian wells. This caused water levels to drop, which in turn caused algae to foul up the pool water. Also, two new sports crazes, golf and bicycling, began competing with the pool, causing a decrease in “swim enthusiasts”. The pool was closed and drained and the land sold in 1903.

Beginning in 1905, houses were built on the south side and the new street named “Willow Ave” emerged. Today Willow Ave remains with homes on both sides, predominantly constructed in the early 20th century. One building from the Natatorium actually remains, part of the clubhouse and women’s dressing room, which is now a rental duplex located at 228 Willow Avenue, Wayne, PA.

The Wayne Natatorium was representative of an interesting late Victorian Folly. Interestingly enough it also fits into PHMC’s theme of “Energy: Innovation and Impact” . The sight and size of the pool would have been a tremendous visual and sensory impact, and as for energy? This pool in a sense way ahead of its time and was “green” because as opposed to pools of today, it used a natural water source and Mother Nature did the rest: swimming in the summer months, and freezing in the winter months allowed for iceskating.

So think about that impact as well: it was utilized year round as an athletic and community resource for gatherings, competitive swimming, ice skating, and physical fitness. And because women were allowed to swim and had their own changing rooms, it helped women be able to take advantage of sports once only available even in a recreational sense, for men.

This piece of history is quite unique to the area in which it sat, and had state, national and international significance in its day, with not only the construction of the pool itself, but with regard to the connection to the sport of competitive swimming, which started to really grow and become established at this point in history.

So if I get this, there may or may not be grant money available for approximately half the cost of the sign. I hope so. I haven't wanted to make a big deal out of this and there is another sign marker up for consideration in the 5th ward, and it was just ironic timing that both were submitted in the same time frame. I do not know if that marker is proceeding in 2009, as I know that the 2010 theme is supposed to be African American History.

But if chosen, I believe there is strong enough interest that we should be able to get this sign up for Little Chicago, right? You see, that is a lot of this: remembering an important piece of local history in North Wayne might encourage further preservation, like a more formal remembering of Jonathan Lengel's house at 236 North Aberdeen, and extending the historic district there. I believe that this part of North Wayne is at risk. AND IGNORED.

So friends, I hope you will support me and this marker if it is chosen and I need help. I don't know if Radnor would be able to support it given the current crisis and also because they authorized that check for $1850 for the other one in that November 10th, 2008 meeting :

Commissioner Paolino requested that the Board authorize the township manager to send a check for $1,850 to support an application to the state for a historical marker in Brook Street Park,recognizing the late Bishop Richard Allen and his boundless effort to achieve racial equality and full citizenship for all Americans. Commissioner Spingler motioned to approve the request. Seconded by Commissioner Hervada, the motion was unanimously passed.

I am confused how that money got pledged, and it was funny, until that article Sam Strike wrote came out, I thought if this check was being approved, they had been previously approved for a marker 2008. But ironically, they are in the same round as my application. All in all wouldn't it be very cool if TWO places in Radnor were chosen this year? FYI: I did this pretty much on my own, with some assistance from the wonderful Beverlee Barnes and the super nice Mr. Pendergast, who did this cool oral history thing:

Wayne Oral History from Radnor Historical Society on Vimeo.