Railroad bridge and Entrance to Longacre park. 
Inside the bridge archway.
Lick Creek, which mainly carries runoff from Longacre, Beech Grove, and other places.
Longacre Lake, which appears to play and important part of handling runoff in this low lying flood plane.
Longacre Lake, which appears to play and important part of handling runoff in this low lying flood plane.
Here is some of the interesting infrastructure that is in place for water control.
8 comments:
Loved the pool there when I was very young. They allowed floaties unlike the city parks. The pool must have closed in the early or mid 1980's, based on my memory.
I believe you are correct on when it closed. Apparently, my parents took me there when I was really young; too young for me to personally remember.
I completely spaced the fact that I didn't disclose exactly where Longacre is. For those of you that are not familiar with Longacre, it is located on Madison Avenue, just south of Shelby Street and not too far from University of Indianapolis.
I'm pretty damn sure that my wife and I bought a cat from someone at Longacre. We make sure to remind her that she was born in a trailer park when she's misbehaving!
Interesting to hear that her old stomping ground has history.
We used to talk someone into taking us out there, from the eastside, about once a year. I remember that you could check your cloths and they had the little baskets to put your cloths in and a pin to put on your suit so that your remembered your basket location. I remember the high dive - not really a diving board as such - but a platform. They also had - mounted to the bottom of the pool in the 3 foot area - a large barrel that you could crawl up on and it would roll. It was a GIANT pool compared to my neighborhood Ellenberger pool - or the more fussy private pool - Miramar.
Longacre is where I learned to swim. Enormous? Yes!
http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0130&CISOPTR=552&CISOBOX=1&REC=6
While finding that photo, I found one from Rhodius park. A huge ABOVE GROUND pool there, 80 yrs ago:
http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0130&CISOPTR=595&CISOBOX=1&REC=8
Some history
"Tue 6/22/99 Flashback Longacre Recreation ParkÕs kidney-shaped pool made the Southside facility one of the cityÕs most popular recreation centers. It was first developed by attorney Edward E. Thompson in the early 1920s. He sold out to Rufus Dodrill Jr., whose family operated it from 1948 to 1972. Up to 7,500 people crammed into the park on a hot Sunday. Dances were held in the second story of the huge old bathhouse, until it was destroyed by fire in 1960. By 1972, times had changed: air conditioning came along and cut down the crowds and the interstate came and cut through the property. Longacre Park was converted into a mobile home park and sold by the Dodrills, who moved to Florida. Rufus Dodrill died in Fort Myers in September 1994, at the age of 69. Photo by unidentified staff photographer, circa June 1930 "
If you would like more history on Longacre park, I used to be married to one of the Rufus Dodrill, Jr.'s sons. He lives in Carmel, IN, and his name is John Dodrill. He could give you more historical information, and will probably talk your ear off.
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