About phone pole playground at Rocky Ridge: ‘Children’s heads got caught in between the logs’
Natanael Santiago of York flips for the rings at Rocky Ridge County Park in this 2006 York Daily Record/Sunday News file shot. At one time, a pile of telephone poles at this Springettsbury (Pa.) Township park served as a place for fun. Background posts: Richard Nixon’s visit to his namesake park sparks memories and Wildflowers at Shenk’s Ferry glen sprouting despite centuries of encroaching civilization and Native Americans help clean up Dritt family cemetery in new York County park.
York Town Square postings about York Township’s Springwood Park brings Loganville’s Alan Nelson back to his childhood.
Specifically, he remembers forts at Rocky Ridge County Park constructed from telephone poles.
Kids climbed on them and within the mazes the piles created, he wrote in an e-mail.
He was seeking information on this low-tech playground.
Enter York County Parks’ Jeri Jones, who knows a lot about a lot of things… .
Yes, a large fort commanded the Oak Timbers picnic area for many years, Jones wrote.
He elaborated:
“We had a large log fort in the Oak Timbers picnic area at Rocky Ridge County Park for many years. Although I don’t know exactly when it was built, I would guess it was part of the original construction of that area of the park that occurred in 1971. The fort measured about 20 feet x 30 feet and was about 10 feet high. As the writer said it was constructed with logs stacked on top of each other. These structures were popular in the 1970’s and early 1980’s for playgrounds. The best I can guess, the York County Parks dismantled this structure around 1995 and replaced it with a modern-day playground. Why? It was because the fort was no longer up to safety standards for playground equipment. There were several occasions that children’s heads got caught in between the logs and a “rescue” mission had to be performed.”
Perhaps up to three generations of families played on this structure, he wrote. It made a wonderful prop for the “Scream in the Park” Halloween trail.
“My wife, being a minister,” he wrote, ” had some great memories in the fort scaring people with her classic scream.”
Background posts: Richard Nixon’s visit to his namesake park sparks memories and Wildflowers at Shenk’s Ferry glen sprouting despite centuries of encroaching civilization and Native Americans help clean up Dritt family cemetery in new York County park.
