York Township’s long-closed Springwood Park spawns memories
York Township’s Springwood Park and pool complex is seen in this undated York County Heritage Trust photo. Background: York Township’s Springwood Park dance hall: ‘We would pack the place’ and York Town Square commenter asks about much-remembered Springwood Pool’s ownership and Springwood Pool and its sloping sides: ‘I remember so well how cold it was’.
A couple of callers have contributed information about the long-closed Springwood Park and pool that operated along Springwood Road in York Township.
John Fishel noticed on an 1876 atlas that the park was listed as the Ma & Pa Railroad’s Springwood Picnic Station.
A York Township history indicates that the park operated from the 1920s to 1954, but that might have been the park when it was built out for large crowds… .
The Ma & Pa connected Baltimore and York and served as a means to get to the park, located just across Mill Creek from its tracks.
The park was never a true “electric park,” which would have meant that it was built and operated to boost Ma & Pa ridership. Brookside, Cold Springs and Highland Park were so named because trolley companies built them to boost off-peak traffic.
The Ma & Pa did provide transportation via its Dallastown spur for residents from that borough to get to the park. (That spur ended at the Ma & Pa station, which stood beside the present-day Rescue Mission economy store, across from the post office.)
Luther B. Sowers called to supply information on a former owner of the park, Stewart (possibly Stuart) Greenawalt.
Sowers said that Greenwalt was his Old East York neighbor in the 1930s and worked for the York Dispatch. Greenawalt later purchased the pool, and Sowers remembers going there when growing up.
Luther remembers Greenawalt as a nice man, proven after Sowers put a foul ball through the Greenawalt dining room window.
“Now don’t worrry, young man,” he told young Sowers, “we’ll get the window replaced.” And he found a way for Sowers to work off its replacement costs.
As for a query from a commenter that a shooting occurred at the pool, Sowers could remember no such incident.
Like many people, Sowers remembers the pool’s sloping sides, which he estimated to be at a 15-degree slope. Those that wanted to dive in would need to go to the deep end.
“You walked into it from the sides,” he said.
Related posts:
– Where did Camp Betty Washington Road get its name?.
– 19th-century mines gave Ore Valley its name.
– ‘Picture Memories’ booklet: York County Flood of 1933 worst of record up to that point.
