As we don’t have anything to harp about in particular today, we thought we would just post something about an interesting piece of Main Line history long fogotten. We will preface our remarks that although what we are about to discuss in NOT within the confines of Lower Merion, or even Ardmore, it naturally lends itself to discussions we’ve had about historic preservation and the recording of oral histories.

The Main Line is a fabulously interesting place full of neat stories and remnants of things past. Whether it is the shadow of what appears to be that long forgotten silo in Ardmore, to the skeletons of mills that dot places like Gladwyne, or a photograph in a book of a house that is now but a ghost, the Main Line has a story to tell, and we hope the stories get told before no one alive is around to remember or to tell the stories.

It is with that spirit we bring you a story of something we didn’t know about until someone asked one of our members who lives in Wayne: The Wayne Natatorium.

It all started innocently enough with a phone call asking if any of us had ever heard of this place. Some of our Wayne members did, so we asked them. They of course are fascinated that at long last someone actually remembers this bit of history and trivia!

The Wayne Natatorium was created with the damming of Gulph Creek . This fresh water pool created what was in 1895 the largest man made swimming pool in the United States , and it was an Olympic Trial Pool ! Boy did our curiosity get piqued. So we did a little web based research.

We discovered that what once was this crazy huge pool and swim club (for lack of a better description), is where a tiny street called Willow Avenue exists today. Our members from Wayne tell us that they hear when the club failed, the pool was emptied, backfilled and Willow Avenue came into existence. They also tell us that the ONE remaining piece of this fabulous historical puzzle is on the sale block, a house at 228 Willow, described aptly as a “fixer upper” (it is in deplorable shape, we drove by) is the final remnant of this place! Underneath layers upon layers of bad stucco that makes it look like an adobe home misfit, is what was the Ladies Dressing Room/Clubhouse.

We went to the website called Philadelphia Architects and Buildings and FOUND The Wayne Natatorium Association! The plans were completed on June 5th, 1895 and the Architect was Francis Albert Gugert (1873 - 1939).

Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide, v. 10, n. 23, p. 1 (6/5/1895)
Project Information

Client name: Wayne Natatorium Association

Project types:
"two buildings - ladies and gentlemen's, each with pool, gymnasium, etc."

Activities: completed plans

Cited Architects, Engineers, and Others
• Gugert, Francis Albert (1873 - 1939) (Architect)
Location Wayne, Radnor Township, Delaware County, PA

Here is the biography we found on the architect:

Born: 1/4/1873, Died: 4/3/1939
Francis A. Gugert was born in Pottsville, PA, the son of Theodore Gugert. He attended Drexel Institute, and during the years 1891-93 he studied mechanical engineering at the Towne Scientific School of the University of Pennsylvania. Until 1921, when he became associated with architects David Knickerbacker Boyd and Victor Abel in Boyd, Abel & Gugert, he maintained an independent practice in Wayne, PA, associated with the residential developments of Wendell and Smith. As part of Boyd, Abel & Gugert, this activity was continued. Gugert continued with that firm until his death in 1939 at the age of 66.

In 1925 Gugert became a member of the national American Institute of Architects. He was also a member of Phi Kappa Psi and the First Presbyterian Church of Wayne.

While we were trolling on the web, we also discovered (courtesy of this super cool web site called http://www.waynepa.com/ ), two old articles from the Suburban & Wayne Times they have transposed onto their website:
”Your Town and My Town” By Emma C. Peterson, April 15, 1949:

With spring in the air and summer not far off, the thoughts of many a Wayne resident, young and old, turn to those warm days when swimming in nearby pools will furnish much welcome recreation. They will gladly go their ways to Martin’s Dam or Colonial Village Swimming Pool or the Mill Dam, little realizing that once upon a time Wayne swimmers of another generation did not have so far to go. For in the early nineties they did their swimming at Kelly’s Dam, a body of water down in the hollow near the railroad tracks in the general vicinity of what is now Willow avenue!

As a matter of fact, Wayne was one of the first localities in this section to have an outdoor swimming pool. In the beginning it was just a good old “swimmin’ hole.” Then an interested group rented the rights to Kelly’s Dam and began to make some improvements. A dressing room was built on piles and there were diving boards, a slide and other equipment. This was enclosed by a high wooden fence to make it private, with a boardwalk along one side of this fence. the diving board was at the deep end of the pool while the shallow end had a wooden bottom. The creek along Willow avenue did not run directly into the pool as there was some sort of filtering system to keep the water clean. In winter when the pool froze over there was skating by lantern light with a stove for heat in the small club house. Yearly dues entitled members to both swimming and skating privileges....

.....Activities at Kelly’s Dam were under the supervision of Kistler, their swimming coach, who later became an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. At the opening day races, Osgood Sayen upheld the prestige of Wayne by winning the 60-yard novice race against a large field. At that time the Australian crawl stroke was a new sprint idea. From time to time quite large swimming meets, considering the size of Wayne, were held here. In the light of present-da methods of teaching swimming those of that early period are interesting by way of contrast. A telegraph pole was sunk in the ground at each end of the pool, with a heavy wire cable stretched across the water. To this was added a rope on a pulley with a belt attached at the water line. The pupil was strapped into the belt and thus taught the art of swimming without danger of going down!

As time went on the young people began to go to Fenimore’s pond in north St. Davids for their swimming and skating. “Billy Pump,” who took his name from the fact that he ran the pumping station for the Pennsylvania Railroad, was in charge there. He was part Indian and considered quite a character. Be it said to his great credit, that while he could not swim himself, he patrolled the pond in his row boat so conscientiously that he never had a drowning!

Many christenings took place both at Kelly’s Dam and at Fenimore’s Pond. Some still remember the time when the crowd watching one of these christenings at the former place was so great that the boardwalk gave way and the spectators themselves were tumbled into the water! Many remember, too, the white-robed figures and the loud screams when baptisms of one of Wayne’s colored churches took place at Fenimore’s Pond.

”Your Town and My Town” By Emma C. Peterson, April 14, 1950:

.....Just a year ago this month when this column was but a few weeks old, the writer devoted the major part of one article in the series to the story of Kelly’s Dam, a body of water down in the hollow near the railroad tracks in the general vicinity of what is now Willow avenue. In its beginnings it was just a good old “swimmin’ hole”. Then an interested group took over by renting the rights to Kelly’s Dam and installing equipment and building dressing rooms. A high wooden fence made for privacy for the swimmers. Wayne was one of the first localities in this section to have such an outdoor swimming pool.

Since first writing of Kelly’s Dam, some interesting additional data in regard to it has come the way of this writer. It was in May, 1895 that a charter was applied for by the Wayne Natatorium Association. The incorporators were John P. Wood, president; Richards H. Johnson, vice-president; Christopher Fallon, Esq., secretary and Julius A. Bailey, treasurer. Also among the incorporators were T. Stewart Wood, Herman Wendell and Frederick H. Treat. A charter was granted on June 10, 1895, by Acting Judge William B. Waddell. Kelley’s Lake was then little more than a muddy pond, ranging in depth from about eight inches to eight feet. Its water supply was from the creek which ran from Leaming’s Wood through North Wayne. The R. H. Johnson Company was awarded the contract for excavating and constructing a pool about 500 feet long with an average width of about 100 feet. A fine clubhouse was built, the first floor being used as a ladies’ dressing room and the second floor as living quarters for the manager. A men’s dressing room was built midway of the pool.

At the formal opening of the pool in July, 1895, a large crowd of amateur swimmers, representing the Philadelphia Swimming Association, the New York Athletic Club, the University of Pennsylvania and a number of other organizations was present. It was indeed a gala occasion! The first swimming instructor was Charles Holryd, a Yorkshireman “with an accent so thick one could cut it”. He was later succeeded by George Kistler, who at that time was the champion mile swimmer of the world. After leaving Wayne he became swimming instructor at Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, and for many years coached Red and Blue championship teams.

Under the excellent training of these two men not only the youngsters but many of the oldsters of Wayne were taught to swim. In the winter the pool was used for skating, with many a carnival held under the bright lights with which the enclosure was illuminated.

For a number of years the Natatorium was a great success. Then the bicycling craze reached its height, and attendance dwindled while former patrons of the pool took off on long “hike” trips. Then at about the turn of the century a general drought made it necessary for the Wayne Water Works Company - a local concern, to sink a number of artesian wells to augment its supply. This dried up several large springs along the creek which fed the pool.

And so after several years of struggling against adverse conditions, Kelley’s Dam was sold, and on its site were built the houses on the South side of Willow avenue.

Sigh....our curiosity is so piqued, and this is all we can recount to you. We hear the historical society up there in Wayne might have more, and there are photographs too, apparently.

Has this whet your appetite to solve this Main Line Mystery? History’s Mysteries are the best. This is why we need to preserve our area, not pave and build all over it. We hope that Wayne has a Mike Weilbacher of it’s very own to suggest saving the last building of this place. Our final note? We went searching, and mind you, Wayne isn’t our town, but there isn’t a sign or anything to remember this Wayne Natatorium, and we think that is sad....even Ardmore has a sign for the long gone Auto Car place where Ardmore West sits today, and signs mark the historic district....maybe their new HARB will fix that!

Remember, you can always build something big and shiny and new, but it takes guts to say you are going to preserve the past and then actually do it.....we don't know about you, but we feel it would be a darn shame if today is remembered in the future as the era when the history and the past of the Main Line died......