Drive started to renovate Washington Park’s Main Pavilion
A fundraising effort is being undertaken to fund $800,000 worth of repairs to the Main Pavilion at Washington Park.
Repair and painting of the wooden beams and roof are just part of the work being planned at the Main Pavilion at Washington Park.
A large party posed for this photo, most likely taken in the summer of 1908.
The pavilion at Washington Park was the subject of this postcard, dated 1910. The enclosed area in the foreground was the park caretaker’s residence.
This architect’s drawing shows how the lower side of the Main Pavilion will look after refurbishment, with the original staircases restored.
Drive out Dunn Avenue and into Washington Park, past the tennis courts and the pool and follow the winding road up the hill. The road splits and flows around an island upon which sits the Main Pavilion: a graceful structure with a low-slung, gabled roof covering a long room and its surrounding porches. Its age – not just its design but its condition – is evident even from a distance.
Step inside and hear your footsteps reverberate through the rafters high above. A breeze wafts through this building open on three sides. At one end is a stage, where every summer Washington Community Theatre puts on a musical production that packs the house night after night.
But your eye is drawn upward into the trusses, their thick beams fastened by hefty bolts and covered by the scale of pealing paint. Birds flash above, their nests tucked in the crotches. The floors are worn by a million footfalls, the once-white railings gray and speckled with soot.
Shabby is not the right word to describe this Great White Lady, however. Weary is more like it. When the wind blows, you can almost hear her sigh.
That the pavilion is in need of refurbishment is obvious, but doing so will cost a lot of money. Some shingles were replaced and the structure was painted 10 years ago, but there is so much more that needs to be done. Scraping and painting the ceiling will require long and painstaking labor, and the restrooms and kitchen need much attention.
The Washington Rotary Club and city government have launched a community effort to refurbish the landmark. To raise the estimated $800,000 needed for the project, they’ll need all the help they can get from individuals, local organizations and businesses as well as grant assistance for sources like the Local Share Account program that distributes casino revenue.
The borough of Washington had no park until May 9, 1903, when Councilman J.F. Shrontz and his wife, Nancy, donated 10 acres off Dunn Avenue for that purpose. Eight days later, a reporter of The Washington Observer visited the new park and was surprised to find so many people had trekked a good half-mile from the trolley line.
“There were to be seen mothers with their children, gathering dogwood blossoms or some of the wild flowers that abound there; there were also a group of young men, and with a Kodak they were enjoying the afternoon in a pleasant manner. Two of Washington’s councilmen were among the visitors, and one carried a Kodak, snapping here and there some pretty bit of landscape. A drink was taken from one of the perennial springs, whose water was found refreshing and cool,” the reporter wrote.
Washington was an industrial boomtown in 1903, with steel mills and glass factories going full steam, darkening the air with soot from their smokestacks. And so a retreat into pristine woods was a novel attraction for workers who lived in crowded neighborhoods surrounding the factories.
Work to make the park more accessible began quickly. A bond issue for street paving that included $5,000 for park improvements was passed by referendum on July 12, 1903. Grading on Dunn Avenue to the park entranhce began five days later, and additional land was promised to the park by the East Side Land Co., composed of neighboring property owners.
The borough announced, “There will be a roofed pavilion in some part of the park where picnic parties may take refuge when it rains and where lunch can be served.”
A bandstand was completed in time for the first public event at Washington Park: a concert by the Imperial Band under the direction of George Vorwerck, composer of “The Washington Observer March.”
The local newspapers were aggressive in their editorials, the Observer calling for more investment in the park and scolding borough council for its parsimony.
“Let us form a Park Association, build a nursery, form committees for various types of plants,” The Daily Reporter opined as it proposed the park be kept as natural as possible. “Keep Satan out of our Eden and city,” its editor wrote.
By the end of October, the park had grown to 26.5 acres and another 76 acres had been promised.
In a referendum on April 18, 1904, Washington’s citizens approved a $200,000 bond issue that included $20,000 for park improvements, and a long debate began over how that money would be spent and what direction the park would take.
One side in the debate wished to keep the park as wild and natural as possible, while the other side campaigned for an amusement park. Eventually, borough council granted a concession to a company that planned to construct a merry-go-round, dining hall, theater concession stands and other attractions, but the company backed out of the deal before anything was built. The reason was that the park still lacked access.
The problem was that the B&O Railroad tracks crossed Dunn Avenue and frequently blocked it when rail cars were left idle on the tracks. The street railway went up Dunn Avenue a short distance, but that company was unwilling to extend the tracks into the park until there was something there to attract more people.
At the same time, councilmen refused to spend funds designated for the park, including money for a roofed pavilion, until the trolley reached the park.
Everyone agreed that what was needed was for the B&O tracks to be elevated, creating an underpass for uninterrupted trolley, foot, buggy and automobile traffic on Dunn Avenue.
Compared to construction today, projects at the turn of the century usually moved at lightning speed. But raising the rail line and creating the “subway” would be expensive, and wrangling over who would pay for it would take years.
Finally, council agreed that nothing would happen with the railways until it began improvements to the park.
On April 23, 1907, Council adopted a plan for a roofed pavilion, or “rest house,” to be 48 by 84 feet with a roomy kitchen and tables on the basement level at an estimated cost of $7,400. It asked for bids by May 6 and a completion date of Aug. 1.
The bids came in higher than expected. Architects David Vester, Andrew Stewart and Henry Rossell were awarded the contract, but their original design and bid of $9,000 was rejected. The firm returned to council May 13 with a revised plan and estimate of $8,350, which was accepted.
In July 1907, the Observer reported that borough engineer E.H. Myers and his crew were doing groundwork in the park, building two long foot bridges and constructing a road all the way to the ball fields.
“Work on the pavilion which was to have been completed by Aug. 1 has been delayed by a lack of lumber, etc., but it is understood that the work will be pushed from now on. It is to be 66 x 130 feet and have a porch all the way around it. Arrangements have been made to have water from one of the springs piped to the shelter house …”
On Aug. 19, 1907, despite work on the underpass had yet to begin, the attendance record at the park was broken with 2,100 visitors. A week later, the newspaper reported that the “pavilion will soon be completed. Near the top of the hill, two different refreshment stands did a bargain-counter business in ice cream cones and orangeade in spite of the Sunday blue laws.”
Perhaps no one has spent more time at Washington Park’s Main Pavilion than Elaine Frost. She was on stage at the pavilion with the Rankin Playhouse for three summers in the early 1970s, and she was in the cast of “Music Man” – Washington Community Theatre’s first musical production at the park in 1975. And she’s been there every summer since then.
“The park gave us $600 to stage ‘Music Man,’ Frost said. “Can you imagine that? This year, for ‘Mary Poppins,’ the budget was $35,000.”
Frost recalls low and high points of Community’s Theatre’s 41 summers at the pavilion. The group’s second production, in 1976, funded by the county and Bicentennial Commission, was “Rifles and Roses.”
“It was just dreadful,” Frost said with a laugh. Things really went awry. And then there was ‘Cinderella’ one year, when the electricity went out for three days.”
She looks wistful and she ticks off her favorites productions over the years: “Mame,” “Brigadoon” and “Music Man,” all of which were performed twice.
“I just love going up there to the pavilion in the spring, in late May, right after Memorial Day, and seeing it so quiet and empty, and then seeing it just packed with people a month later for the shows.”
Washington Park has experienced much change over the past 11 decades. During the Great Depression, the Stone Pavilion, another architectural gem, was constructed under the Works Projects Administration, and a swimming pool was built near the park entrance. Originally operated by the Washington Recreation Co., the pool was purchased by the city in 1939 and later enlarged. Lew Hays Pony Field dates to the early 1950s. Tennis courts, playgrounds equipment, picnic shelters and baseball, softball and soccer fields were added as the park grew to its current 253 acres.
The Vernon Neal Sportsplex is now on land once occupied by an outdoor ice rink.
Washington Rotary Club is collecting donations for the Main Pavilion restoration by way of the Rotary Foundation. Those wishing to support the project may make a tax-deductible gift by writing checks payable to the Rotary Foundation and mailing them to Washington Rotary Club , P.O. Box 1418, Washington, PA 15301. Additional information on the project can found on Facebook at “Washington Park PA pavilion renovation.”