The beaches of Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS -- As long as there is water and hot weather, young people found a way to stay cool.

As early as 1904, city officials began looking for ways to keep swimmers safe.

In 1912, a bath house and beach were proposed at Ellis Park. The plan was met with opposition from members of the community who were concerned about having swimmers up river from the city's waterworks facility. They feared pollution of the city's water supply. At the time, the waterworks facility pulled water directly from the river, filtered it and pumped it into the city's water mains.

The Gazette published an opinion on the issue: "The Gazette believes the objectors to the bathing beach are protesting over much about nothing. Why do you know, there has been a great deal of bathing in the Cedar River below Ellis Park every summer for many years. Even such fellows as J.F. and W.A. Rall, J.D. Blue, Frank Stull, Ed Tuttle and the writer have all bathed in the river there at the same time, and no horrible epidemic resulted from the use of the city water thereafter.

"Really, Cedar River water, as it is furnished the people of Cedar Rapids, is good. We doubt if there ever was a time when such good water was sent through the mains. The water supply is protected by intakes properly placed, and the filtration system is adequate and efficient."

An anonymous poem appeared in the paper titled "If We Get a Bathing Beach":

Mother may I go out to swim?

Yes my darling daughter --

But take a bath before you go

So you won't pollute the water.

Park Commissioner Fred Lazell turned his attention to the south end of May's Island after the Ellis Park project died.

The municipal bathing beach and bath house were built for $1,077. Attendance was recorded as 10,647 boys and 2,852 girls when the beach opened in the summer of 1912. Because of its popularity, the swimming space was expanded to 200 feet and dredged five feet deep for the 1913 season.

In 1914, separate diving areas for men and women were added as well as a fenced-off area along the edge of the river for young children.

In June 1914, construction on a new public bath house was started below the 16th Avenue Bridge. Architects Josslyn and Taylor designed a 40-by-20-foot steel facility with 26 dressing rooms, 172 lockers, a shower bath and lavatories. The bath house cost about $1,500. Anticipation for the new south side beach was high.

By 1920, the south side beach was larger and more popular than the island beach. It had two bath houses, the portable one for women and a remodeled building formerly used as a voting booth for men.

Previously, bathing suits, towels and lockers were provided by the municipal facilities, but in 1920, suits weren't available to rent.

A possible new beach on the east side of the island above Ellis Park was proposed by Park Commissioner Harry Whitfield in 1921. There were again objections about swimmers contaminating water drawn into the waterworks intake.

Instead of the east side of the river, a new bathing beach was established in Ellis Park.

In June 1924, work crews finished the roof on the bath house and dug tree roots out of the river bank that would become the new municipal beach. Instead of closing Sept. 1, the beach stayed open as long as the weather was good.

Record crowds took advantage of the new beach, while attendance at the beach upriver dropped off. Patrons said they generally were satisfied with the new facilities with two minor exceptions. The floors in the dressing rooms needed a wood grating to eliminate the "underfoot sloppiness" and children accompanied by parents who used neither locker nor towel were required to pay a shower fee.

Each year in the early summer, new sand was hauled to the beach for the summer swimming season to replace what was washed away by ice and spring until 1940. In 1941, the new Cedar Rapids municipal swimming pool opened.

The beach house was leased to the Waubeek Area Boy Scout Council for its Sea Scout program until 1957, and the city used the building for park restrooms and riverfront improvement storage.

Forty years later, the City Council met to determine if the bath house had any historic value and whether it was worth the $150,000 it would take to repair it.

The remains of the municipal beaches disappeared when the Ellis bath house was torn down in 2004 for the project to widen Ellis Boulevard and the addition of a trail.