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Henry County archivist Desmond Kendrick, right shows pictures of Liberty Heights Pool during his presentation as part of New College Institute's Non-Credit Lecture Series at the Institute. Standing second from right is co-speaker Carl deHart, Martinsville archivist, who told of the pool and Lester Airport. |
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
Decades ago, the site where Liberty Fair Mall now stands was a place for swimming and socializing, not shopping.
About 55 people attended a lecture Wednesday about the former Liberty Heights Pool by local historians Desmond Kendrick and Carl deHart as part of the New College Institute’s Non-Credit Lecture Series.
Martinsville archivist deHart said the pool “lasted quite a long time and was a benefit to the community” as a social center.
The 2 million gallon pool, with a circumference of more than 1,000 feet, stayed open for more than 30 years. However, it began as a reservoir for fire protection for the Lester Lumber Co. in the 1920s, said Kendrick, Henry County archivist.
“The pool wouldn’t have been here without Lester Lumber Co.,” now The Lester Group Inc., Kendrick said.
Fires destroyed the company’s lumber processing plants at Figsboro in 1916 and at Jones Creek in 1919. “Captain Til” Lester, the company’s founder, said he was tired of wood buildings burning and wanted a more permanent structure, Kendrick said, so Lester rebuilt the Jones Creek plant in 1920 out of concrete and steel and constructed the reservoir nearby.
The Liberty Heights Pool took about $100,000 and 16 months to complete, with 25,000 bags of concrete weighing 100 pounds each, Kendrick said. When it was finished, the oval pool measured 260 by 130 feet long and could accommodate about 2,000 swimmers.
The pool officially opened to the public on July 4, 1926, though people probably were sneaking in to swim before that, Kendrick said.
The pool was divided into three circular sections: an 18-inch deep wading pool on the outside, separated by a wall from a four-foot deep section, and a 12-foot section at the center.
Water from Jones Creek was pumped 200 feet up the hill to the pool, Kendrick said. The pool boasted a $50,000 filtration system that processed 360,000 gallons of water every hour.
Admission was 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children and spectators.
DeHart said he learned to swim at Liberty Heights, “not from instruction, but from ridicule.”
“I was dog-paddling in the shallow water, and my friends were laughing at me, so I learned,” he said.
There was a three-tiered diving platform into the 12-foot water for “adventurous individuals,” deHart said.
“I never tried — I was always much better as a spectator,” he added.
There was so much chlorine in the pool that it turned blond hair green, one woman in the audience recalled.
“I had green hair all summer,” said Pat Austin, who said she used to go to the pool in the summer “every day from the time I was 8 years old until it closed.”
Although deHart said he never got up enough nerve to jump off the 20-foot diving platform, Austin said she used to jump off the diving board all the time, even as a child.
“I have wonderful memories of that pool. It was a really good place to go,” she said.
The facility also had a dance hall pavilion with oak floors that could fit 500 couples at one time, Kendrick said. It also was used for roller skating, with a concession stand that rented out skates.
Audience member Lucy Wilson said the lecture was “interesting,” and she shared a story about the dance hall from her mother, Dell Pannill Carter.
“My mother told me that all of their age group would go to dances at Liberty Heights and would wear out their dancing slippers on that hard floor in just one night,” Wilson said.
The dance hall roof blew off in a windstorm in 1931, Kendrick said. Rather than replace it, the oak floorboards were torn up, and the area was turned into a deck for sunbathing, which was becoming fashionable at the time.
Liberty Heights Pool closed in 1957 because private community pools were becoming popular, and it no longer was practical to keep it open, Kendrick said. The facility stood until August 1987, when it was demolished to make way for Liberty Fair Mall.
Before the mall was built, the Henry County Fair was held near the pool for many years and was “one of the highlights of the year for the young people around here,” deHart said, with rides and agricultural exhibits.
The Lester Aviation Co. airport, “a thriving facility,” also was located on the tract of land, deHart said. It started “in the days when you had to be very courageous to fly” because early airplanes were so flimsy, he said.
“Many of these things were not much better than a kite,” he said.
The next topic in the Non-Credit Lecture Series will be “Memories of Piedmont Christian Institute: Proud Heritage of Black Educators,” to be held at noon Nov. 13 at the New College Institute uptown. Christina Draper of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities will be the speaker. |
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