Fallen tree crushes giant ‘hamster wheel’ at Ottumwa Park

OTTUMWA - The Ottumwa Park hamster wheel was different.

Sure, you could go on a slide, swing on the swings or ride on the seesaw. But you went in - actually inside - the hamster wheel.

Oh, and before a tree crushed the landmark playground piece last month, you'd almost certainly fall while using it. That was part of the fun.

'She just absolutely loves it,” Dianna Blake of Ottumwa recalled last week, describing trips with her goddaughter, 4. 'She giggles and falls and giggles some more.”

Most fans of the running wheel agree it's easier to show someone how it works than it is to tell them. It was, as an estimate, a 6-foot-tall frame inside of which was a 5-foot-high, 4-foot-wide hollow wooden wheel. Use it as its name implied: The Human Hamster Wheel of Ottumwa Park.

You start to walk toward the front of the wheel and hidden bearings allow it to turn at each step. Get a friend to help and you can walk fast, and maybe start to run. And then you fall to the floor. A floor which, about a second later, becomes the roof. And then you really fall.

'You'd get up and do it again,” said Blake. 'I am 61 years old. I still like trying to get all the way around. I can never make it.”

Last Monday, she signed a petition at Change.org asking the Ottumwa Parks Department to consider having the unusual, beloved contraption replaced. The effort was started by Rachel Hull, a lifelong Ottumwa resident.

'I just wanted some sort of organized place other than Facebook where people could go and express their interest,” Hull said. 'I had seen a lot of people upset about the loss of it.”

Within a day or two, the petition she began with her signature had passed 600 names.

She's not demanding anything. She's asking the city to consider a version of the apparatus. So far, she said, what she's hearing doesn't sound hopeful - but is just hearsay. She's hoping to get to an official meeting.

Perhaps half those who signed the declaration also wrote their reason for signing. Others recalled the adventures they've had.

'Almost everyone alive in this area right now has played on that thing,” said a supporter, Stacy Bennett. 'It has been a staple for almost half a century.”

Melissa Sipes of Ottumwa said she feels that, perhaps, skilled citizens could rebuild it if the city won't.

'I think we can do it as a community,” she wrote.

Whether they call it the hamster wheel, the fun house or, like Shannah Armstrong of Ottumwa's family, 'the doghouse,” support is strong for the wheel.

'My children and I have so many memories of playing at the park,” wrote Armstrong, along with her signature. 'I've been to lots of places and have never see anything like it. Would love to see it rebuilt so that other children can make fond memories playing in it.”