Ghost Pools — Hannah S. Palmer

GHOST POOLS

A brief history of swimming in Atlanta and across America.

Where I live, in East Point, Georgia, there are no public pools.

The huge public pool built by the Works Progress Administration was destroyed sometime between desegregation and air conditioning. In its place, the East Point Historical Society sits in a relocated Craftsman house and the lawn out front bears no trace of the former pool. Across town, the former “Negro Pool” is now a parking lot.

What happened to the pools? I wondered. Were they ever integrated? Did the city fill them with dirt rather than deal with the prospect of “mixed bathing”? These questions were not addressed by the Historical Society. A cloud of nostalgia, suspicion, and shame hung over conversations around the old pool. The museum offered no mention of segregation or explanation for the pool’s demise. The Black experience was missing; the grassy pool looked like a burial and a cover-up.

For the last few years, as I tried to find a place for my kids to swim, I also studied the lost public pools of Atlanta. This research was enlightened by the book Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming in America by historian Jeff Wiltse. Though Wiltse’s book specifically focuses on pools in the north, the national trends he identifies explained so much about pools of the Jim Crow South—how they were funded, designed, sited, segregated, litigated, defunded, and ultimately abandoned.

I learned that what happened to the pool in my neighborhood was part of a pattern across the nation, a sad but common history. What would happen if we shared an understanding of what happened to these ambitious public spaces? “Ghost Pools” attempts to lay the historical groundwork for this conversation.

This pool was once loud with laughter, shouts, music, and splashing.

What if the pool walls could talk? Would it facilitate dialogue? Jog memories?

Could it inform how East Point reclaims and reactivates formerly segregated spaces in a way that acknowledges the past, while looking towards the future?

1900–1930:
A NEW NATIONAL PASTIME

“Atlanta has become one of the ‘swimmingest cities’ in the country, even though it has no sea beach, but pools are maintained in Piedmont, Grant, Maddox, Mozley, and Cochran parks for white bathers, and one in Washington Park for the negro residents.”
*– THE ATLANTA CITY BUILDER,*
AUGUST 1930

1860s–1890s: Public Baths

The country’s first municipal pools were intended to provide baths for working-class youths — to keep rowdy, naked boys out of the rivers and lakes. They served as large, austere bathtubs for poor and immigrant neighborhoods. At the turn of the century, cities like Philadelphia and Boston began to construct attractive public pools for sport and fitness.
Our timeline begins with this focus on constructed public spaces for swimming.

1902

1911

THE COLD SPRINGS ‘CUE CLUB

From 1895 to 1915, at the site of East Point’s first swimming pool, the Cold Springs ‘Cue Club hosted thousands of guests at traditional outdoor barbecues under long wooden pavilions. Menus featured “pig, lamb, kid, chicken, Brunswick stew, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, potatoes, green corn, watermelons, etc. Also paregoric and other cordials and refreshments from the big spring.”
*Image: East Point Historical Society*

1912

1913

MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

When Fairgrounds Park Pool opened in St. Louis, it was the first gender-integrated municipal pool in the northern United States and the first one officially segregated along racial lines.

**1915-1930: The Great Migration**

1.5 million African Americans from the rural South migrated to and settled in northern cities for industrial jobs, challenging White ownership of public spaces.

1919

**1920-1929: First municipal pool building boom**

The federal government funded the construction of public, resort-style pools in towns and cities nationwide, which democratized swimming for a generation of middle-class Americans.

1922

MILLIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS

In a travel book called “Atlanta: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” author John R. Hornady wrote, “There is no form of recreation in this City that is more thoroughly enjoyed by the masses of the people, unless it is swimming.
And here, too, really remarkable provision has been made. At Grant Park a new swimming pool of Roman magnificence has been provided recently... In addition to the above, which provide convenient places of recreation in many communities, there are two great swimming pools where thousands may enjoy this sport; one at Piedmont Park, with an area of about 4 acres, and one at Lakewood with an area of about 3 acres.”
*Image: Copyright Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Courtesy of Georgia State University Library*

1930

POOLS AS BATTLEGROUNDS

Even though Pennsylvania’s civil rights law prohibited racial segregation, Pittsburgh’s Black residents were required to present a “health certificate” to access the new Highland Park Pool. Once admitted, they were attacked by White mobs as police looked the other way.
*Image: University of Pittsburgh*

SEGREGATED CITY POOLS

“With school out, the minions hie away to summer camps, parks and playgrounds. The leading attractions at the latter are the swimming pools. The water would naturally attract youngsters; every boy from the infants on, would like nothing better than the swimming hole.”
*– THE DROWNING SEASON, Atlanta Daily World, June 24, 1959*

1933

**A SWIMMING POOL IN EAST POINT**

East Point officials dedicated a new three-acre park called Memorial Park on Spring Avenue in June 1932 on a plot of land “once popularly known as the Cold Springs ‘cue grounds.” The park included a concrete, spring-fed swimming pool with a brick bathhouse, tennis courts, and “a clear, cold spring.” The $30,000 pool was likely constructed with support from the WPA. It was restricted for the use of White residents only.
*Image: East Point Historical Society*

SHRINKING SWIMSUITS

As young women challenged the rules of modesty with revealing swimwear, many public pools became venues for beauty pageants and open flirtation. Growing concerns about the intimate atmosphere at public pools deepened White communities’ commitment to strict separation of the races.
*Image: East Point Historical Society*

1937

FIGHTING RACIAL EXCLUSION IN COURT

Athletic Park Pool in Newton, Kansas, opened in 1935 and was leased to a private operator who refused to admit Black swimmers. Kern v. City Commissioners of Newton, KS was one of the first cases where the NAACP challenged racial exclusion at municipal pools. Nearly 20 years before arguing Brown v. the Board of Education, Topeka, KS, NAACP civil rights attorney Elisha Scott successfully challenged racial discrimination at this WPA-funded swimming pool.
*Image: W.R. Murphy photographer, Harvey County Historical Museum & Archives, Newton, Kansas*

1942

A PLACE TO SWIM

Camp J. K. Orr, a Boy Scouts of America Camp for Black scouts in Hampton, Georgia offered a place for kids to swim, learn, and play from 1940 until 1964. Camp Orr closed when the Civil Rights Act passed and the Boy Scouts of America integrated another local camp.
*Image: Edward Randolph Carter and Andrew Jackson Lewis collection, Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System*

1944

BUT IS IT PUBLIC?

The Callaway family, one of the largest landowners and employers in Southwest Georgia, established the Callaway Educational Association (CEA) to provide amenities to employees of Callaway Mills in LaGrange, including an enormous outdoor swimming pool which opened in 1946. Because CEA membership was restricted to Whites only, the swimming pools, library, and other facilities remained segregated until the organization shut down in 1992.
*Image: Troup County Photograph Collection*

Polio fears

Because polio outbreaks were most common in the summer months, people suspected shared waters might be a source of the virus. Public lakes, beaches, and pools were frequently closed.

1950

**Desegregation beyond the South**

In the North and West, White swimmers abandoned pools where swimming became accessible to Black swimmers. As a result, most cities no longer prioritized and funded public pools, and many were closed down or fell into disrepair.

**BLACK BEACHES**

Barred from most public beaches, developers like John Loyd Atkinson, a Tuskegee Airman in World War II, sought a recreational facility for Black Americans. Atkinson worked with the state to create Georgia’s first Negro State Park, George Washington Carver State Park on Allatoona Lake.

**Backyard pool-building boom**

White flight to the suburbs fueled many innovations in pool construction and financing. Over 800,000 private, backyard pools were built in this period. Meanwhile, Black families were systematically denied access to suburban housing and home loans.

1954

JIM CROW POOLS

Following a bond referendum in 1953, East Point constructed two separate but unequal swimming pools. The pool on Spring Avenue for White residents was 175’ x 75’ and cost $100,000. The Randall Street pool for the Black community was 75’ x 35’ and cost $50,000.
*Image: East Point Historical Society*

**Chlorine enters widespread use**

Spring–fed ponds were phased out in favor of filtered, sterilized waters and standardized pool designs.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

The U.S. Supreme Court passed landmark legislation that struck down segregation in public facilities and overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” that was so clearly contradicted by Jim Crow–era public pools.

1959

SCANDAL AT RANDALL STREET

East Point’s city council fired Roy Grayson, the superintendent of parks and recreation, after learning that White instructors participated in a Red Cross water safety course at the Randall Street Pool. He appealed the decision and told reporters his human rights had been violated.

1960

1963

1964

POOL PROTESTS

In news footage that shocked the nation, the manager of the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida, poured cleaning acid into the swimming pool as protesters hosted a swim-in at the segregated motel.
*Image: AP Photo/Horace Cort*

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964

One month after the Monson Motor Lodge protests, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It legally ended Jim Crow segregation of restaurants, transportation, and public facilities like pools.
*Image: LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton*

**1966: Federal Funds for Urban Pools**

Part of the federal government response to violent protests (“race riots”) in the late 1960s was anti-poverty grants to fund recreation facilities for “disadvantaged youths” in urban areas. Hundreds of cheap, no frills mini-pools were built with these grants in low-income neighborhoods. Swimming in small, urban public pools became associated with marginalized communities of color.

1969

**DISADVANTAGED YOUTH**

In the late ‘60s, Atlanta received anti-poverty grants from the federal government to extend hours at swimming pools, install sprinklers in 40 playgrounds, and provide chartered buses to transport young people to pools. The U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity allocated these funds for the nation’s cities to literally cool unrest in inner cities. In Atlanta, these funds helped construct new pools at Anderson Park, Perry Homes, Dunbar Park, and more.
*Image: Copyright Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Courtesy of Georgia State University Library*

KEEPING THE PEACE

In 1965, after 22 Black students were arrested for blocking a sidewalk in front of the segregated White pool, the city of Griffin closed its two public pools “in the interest of public safety and for the good of the people of the community.” In 1969, the city filled and graded both pools.

1972

THE CLEAN WATER ACT

A major step toward restoring swimmable water quality nationwide, this federal legislation regulates pollution discharges and water quality standards for creeks and rivers.

1974

1977

EARLY WATER PARKS

Massive private water parks reinvented the experience of public swimming for families that could afford it. Point Mallard in Decatur, Alabama, constructed one of the nation’s first wave pools in 1970.

1978

THE MLK NATATORIUM

The same year that the historic Washington Park pool closed, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Natatorium opened. As the first public, indoor, competition pool in Atlanta, the natatorium became home to a new generation of Black competitive swimmers.

**1980s: Suburban Oasis**

The decline of public pools, concerns about water pollution, and the general economic recovery of the mid-’80s fueled another wave of backyard swimming pool construction. By the end of the century, more than 4 million in-ground residential pools had been installed.

1982

1983

1984

1990-NOW
REMEMBRANCE & RESTORATION

“Today, we don’t even notice the absence of the grand resort pools in our communities; where grass grows over former sites, there are no plaques to tell the story of how racism drained the pools. But the spirit that drained these public goods lives on. The impulse to exclude now manifests in a subtler fashion, more often reflected in a pool of resources than a literal one.”
– Heather McGhee, *The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, 2021*

1994

SAVING THE HOOCH

The Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a newly founded nonprofit based in Atlanta, joined with downstream plaintiffs to file a lawsuit in federal court against the City of Atlanta for chronic sewage spills into the Chattahoochee River. For decades, this organization has fought to restore water quality to Georgia’s longest river and Atlanta’s waterfront.
*Image: Copyright Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Courtesy of Georgia State University Library*

THE NEW AQUATICS CENTERS

In 1991, the city of St. Charles, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, built the first of three grand “family aquatic centers.” These facilities offered what backyard private pools could not: water slides, lazy rivers, and complex play structures for kids of all ages. This trend of replacing old public pools with multi-million dollar suburban water parks spread across the nation.
*Image: Core Group Engineering*

1999

OLD WOUNDS

Decades after Baltimore’s largest segregated pool closed, city planners commissioned “a meditative, artistic, and informative setting acknowledging the segregation era at the site of the formerly ‘Negro Pool’” in Druid Hill Park. Artist Joyce J. Scott’s installation *The Memorial Pool,* created a place to learn about the joy the African American community experienced there and to understand the Civil Rights history of Baltimore.
*Image: Photo by Joshua Clark Davis*

2004

SWIMMING AT “THE Y”

The Southwest YMCA on Campbellton Road opened in 1959 and has continuously adapted to serve the changing communities of Southwest Atlanta. As public pool facilities closed, the Y provided much needed access to swimming instruction. In 2004, the facility was renamed for former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and Dr. Walter Young, longtime supporters, volunteers, and avid swimmers. It was the first time a Metro Atlanta YMCA facility was named in honor of an African American family.
*Image: YMCA of Metro Atlanta*

2010

**CDC begins to study racial disparities in drowning deaths**

Using decades of data on unintentional drowning, the CDC begins to study circumstances surrounding swimming pool drownings among young Americans to understand why Black males and other racial/ethnic groups have higher drowning rates. Key recommendations, like “promoting basic swimming and water safety skills among disproportionately affected racial/ethnic groups,” depend on access to public, swimmable waters.

2012

FORMER GLORY

After artists activated Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool as a performance space and concert venue in 2005, it was designated as a historic landmark in 2007. This led to a $50 million renovation, and the pool reopened in 2012. With the pool’s reconstruction, all 11 of New York City’s original Works Progress Administration–era pools had been reopened. McCarren Park pool is three times the size of a football field and can accomodate 1,500 swimmers.
*Image: NYC Parks*

2014

ATLANTA’S POOL RENAISSANCE

During his first year in office, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed raised private funds to help renovate and reopen recreation centers across the city. With the passage of a major bond referendum, several public pools reopened: John A. White Park in 2014, Oakland City in 2015, Maddox Park in 2016, and the MLK Aquatic and Recreation Center in 2017.
*Image: City of Atlanta*

2018

2020

2022