Webber Pool

Webber Pool. Shingle Creek: swimming hole to pool. Did you know that Shingle Creek was the water source for the first swimming pool at Webber Park?, Shingle Creek was once the site of a popular swimming hole. In 1908, however, the land was acquired for the park, and the creek dammed. When Charles C. and Mary Webber offered to build a children's playground in memory of their young son, Superintendent Theodore Wirth suggested a pool instead. They agreed. John Deere Webber Memorial Field House and Baths opened in 1910. The two-story building also held an upper level reading room, warming house and playground shelter., The water in the pool came directly out of the creek. It was not until 1927, when the pool and building were reconstructed, that the water supply was connected to city water. This was again funded by the Webbers and prompted a name change for the park, from Camden Park to Charles C. Webber Park. (Mr. Webber was the grandson of John Deere of tractor fame.), For 17 years, the pool had been neither filtered nor chlorinated. The pool, re-built in 1980, is still the only full-sized outdoor pool in the city., Why was there a wall around the pool? , In 1910, Theodore Wirth explains, "Mixed bathing... was not to be countenanced... so certain hours were established for men and boys and separate ones for the girls and women... 12-foot walls were not high enough to keep the boys from peeking when the girls were in the pool, and the fencing on top of the walls only provided them with the means of holding on, instead of discouraging the practice. Finally, the... sensible conclusion was reached that supervised mixed bathing was quite permissible...", The wall around the pool stood until the pool building and library were reconstructed in 1980., Theodore Wirth, Minneapolis Park System 1883-1944, (Minneapolis, Minn. 1945) p. 188