Pool opponent in 1937 has change of heart

When I left off two weeks ago, I promised to tell you how McCook ended up getting their new pool when the proposition had failed in the 1936 election. Then I went on a short vacation in two areas where internet and phone services are foreign languages. I had a hard time trying to figure out why I would leave SW Nebraska and travel where it was just as hot, but vacation is vacation and now I need to make good on my promise to finish the pool story.

It wasn’t that McCook didn’t have a pool, the YMCA had a pool, but McCook didn’t have a public pool. Several doctors touted the health benefits of swimming in a municipal pool rather than the rivers, creeks or sand pits but A. Barnett still opposed the pool and his opinion carried a lot of weight in McCook.

Somehow the proposed pool language made it back on the ballot in April of 1937 along with the public power franchise question and a question concerning continuing to issue liquor licenses (for sale in stores) in McCook. Mayor Lawritson had stated when the council voted to place the pool on the spring ballot, that should the pool question fail once again, he would never ask to have it placed to a vote in the future.

The fur flew between the opponents/proponents of the pool but, the most telling comment came from a South McCook poll worker who proclaimed: “We beat the swimming pool bonds last time, and we’ll beat them again this year. As long as we don’t get our sewer project, McCook won’t get any pool.” ( It was rumored that “some residents of South McCook have been agitating for a sewage disposal plant”.)

Noting that turnout would probably be heavy with the three main ballot issues (I’m suspecting that the liquor license issue might have been a bigger deal than the other two.), the opposing side was astounded by A. Barnett’s change of heart when he announced that he was supporting the pool issue at last. The McCook Daily Gazette announced this four days before the election: “Swimming Pool Stock Is Up-Stock in a proposed swimming pool in McCook made one of the most phenomenal gains Wednesday of this week, when A. Barnett, who opposed the bond issue last year, came before the Chamber of Commerce and said he favored the issue. The swimming pool bonds provide one of several issues before the voters April 6. It is a project in which the city will match materials with the federal government in WPA labor, accomplishing two objectives. That of providing a recreational spot in the city for both young and old, in the form of swimming. And that of providing labor for those out of work. There is little doubt that without opposition the proposed bond issue will carry with a handsome majority on April 6.” (McCook Gazette, April 2, 1937)

And so it did. Six hundred more people showed up to vote than the previous election. Mayor Lawritson was elected to his seventh term in office. Liquor licenses would continue to be issued after a vote in favor of 1478 to 563. The pool passed also with a tally of 1393 to 676 with five out of seven wards voting in favor of it.