Not everyone was in favor of a McCook city pool in 1935

First a couple of notices before I delve into the pool question in 1935. The SWNGS Genealogical Library is going to be open by appointment only during the month of August. Either Sherrie Dack or I will make ourselves available to those who need to do a search and you can reach us at 308-350-0126 for Sherrie or 308-340-8221 for Sue.

Second announcement is concerning our upcoming October 22 Genealogical Expo. We are bringing Beth Sparrow in to do three sessions. In the morning she will cover DNA for Beginners along with the four major DNA testing sites and how they differ. After lunch, which is included in your registration fee, Beth will be showing how to research Church records, specifically, Methodist, Baptist and Lutheran records followed by a Question-and-Answer panel to address issues you might need help with.

Now to the pool in the 1930’s. Apparently there was money available for cities to access to be used for major projects. A State Planning Board oversaw those funds and each community had to issue weighted projects for consideration.

McCook was in a quandary. The flood of 1935 had destroyed South McCook’s sewage treatment plant as well as doing great damage to the light and power plant sitting below grade. The city fathers were also getting input as to the fact that McCook was without a public swimming pool when several smaller communities had public pools. Apparently the monies had strings attached such as matching or contributed funds and while South McCook felt that the fact that their household sewage was just dumping into a pond (they were raising quite a stink about it…ha-ha) put them way ahead of everything else, the powers that be had to rate each item on the list and the sewer treatment facility came in second at a cost of $ 65,000. New lighting using a distribution system that was coming down from Sutherland came in first but no cost was assigned to that because it would come from the income generated by the usage. A new (there was no pool at the time) City Municipal Pool ranked third with an estimated contributed cost of $ 22,000, a new City Hall was fourth at $ 29,850 and finally, a City Auditorium came in fifth.

So while Arapahoe, Cambridge, Imperial & Benkelman were breaking ground on a pool, McCook had to take the bonds necessary to a vote of the people. The resulting bond issue special election held in February 1936 failed with some very prominent McCookie’s speaking against it including A. Barnett.

We can’t be too hard on them though, because as far as economists were concerned, the United States was still battling its way through the Great Depression. In fact, although history says the depression ended in 1939, the true measure of when our economy kicked back into full speed ahead was the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I’d say that was a hard kick in the you know what to take just to have our factories and workforce back in force.

So how did McCook finally get a WPA pool built? That is a question I will answer next week.

This weekend is the Chautaugua starting out with a Hot Summer’s Nights Jimmy D and the Fabulous Destinations concert on Thursday night you won’t want to miss.

I’ll be doing a free walking tour of the first four blocks of Norris Avenue on Saturday morning. We will meet at the Museum at 9 am and walk down and back noting the businesses that existed in 1953 and 1958. The 1950’s is the theme of Chautaugua this year and one of the noted speakers will be portraying Rosa Parks. What is that about inspirational and educational? It’s open to all ages and there are special activities for everyone.