Mound Park in the fifties

My brother, Jim, sold the Scioto Voice, a weekly newspaper he owned in Wheelersburg, Ohio east of Portsmouth, a few years ago.  He still sends a "High Notes" article in each week.  The Kegleys lived on McConnell Ave. two blocks below Mound Park and we ten kids each spent time in Mound Park.  Thanks to Jim for this nostalgic piece about the park.

 

High Notes 05-23-2013 Mound Park

 

Three old men were sitting on painted green wooden park benches under the large Sycamore trees at the top of Mound Park, Portsmouth.  They were sitting facing West toward the horseshoe mound, and could view the panorama of play area, from the croquet courts on the corner of Grant and Hutchins to the no longer used croquet courts at 17^th and Hutchins Streets, and by turning slightly they could watch the short-shorts clad girls playing tennis on either the clay courts, or the asphalt courts located across the alley from the Park Shoppe.  I didn’t know all of the men, but I do remember one was named, Joe C. Robinson, a fireman on the N & W Railroad.  Like my own Dad, most railroaders wore puffy blue-denim bill caps as part of their working togs, but I remember that Mr. Robinson, who lived in the 1600 block of High Street, had a finely starched sheet-white railroad cap he’d wear to the park.  It seemed to me that he also had a set of starched white overhauls he’d sometimes wear. 

It was 1950, and I.B. and Paul Thompson still ran their small grocery store cata-corner from the park’s sandstone tapered step-up water fountain on the corner of Grant and Hutchins.   At that time, I.B. (Isaac) and his wife, Estelle Thompson played shuffleboard on the smooth concrete finished courts, located directly opposite the Thompson’s 1812 Grant Street home.  The croquet and shuffleboard courts were lighted, and the old folks would play into the midnight hours at times.  There was no hurry to return to those sweltering homes during the summer months.

I think old I. B. must have been the president of the local shuffleboard club, because he was the “keeper of the lights” and was responsible for their use.  Now and then he would allow some of we park urchins (We were young raggedy rogues) access to the implements, pucks and court time.  Shuffleboard was a fun way to while away some lazy-time.  It was darn competitive too, even among the kids.  You certainly know the old codgers enjoyed their gamesmanship!  The oldsters didn’t like us playing, but since Mound Park was a public park, they grudgingly let us play if we raised enough Cain.

Along with the fountain at the south croquet courts, there were four of those stone drinking fountains in Mound Park…one near the shelter houses at the top of McConnell Avenue, and the third at the tennis courts, behind the softball field bleachers.  The fourth was at the north end of the horseshoe mound, across from Logan Street.  I think Mound Park’s structures were built during the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency under the auspices of the WPA (Works Progress Administration).  On Sunday my 41-year old son, Forest came down from Circleville to visit and he reminded me of a unique kid’s sliding-board, designed like a space ship, with a red painted and pointed top, which was there during his generation’s Mound Park activities.

For we 1950’s urchins who happened to get caught by some of those older high school hooligans, our right of passage into high school was to be  “set on the fountain” at Mound Park.

The area around Mound Park was an ideal place to grow up.  I haven’t spent much time in the park lately, but I suppose there are still old men ogling the girls, and many a parent with their kids at play. 

Thompson’s Grocery building is still standing at the corner of Grant and Hutchins, but it has housed several businesses since the 50’s including Gomer and Clark Moore’s tv electronics store, and now it is a Pro Tan tanning salon.