- City:
- Haddonfield, NJ
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Bathhouses
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a pool in Mountwell Park in Haddonfield, New Jersey ca. 1936. The pool has since been abandoned.
Philly.com:
[The pool] “started out as a swimming hole created by the 1913 construction of a cobblestone dam (the cobblestones were taken from Kings Highway) at a stream near the present intersection of Reillywood Avenue and Centre Street. The bathhouse atop an adjacent hill and a children’s playground followed. In 1937, as a public-works project after the Depression, a cement pool replaced the original sand-bottom hole.That year, the Camden County Park System described the pool and its park as being “. . . nestled in a wooded glen at the edge of town but central enough for the accommodation of thousands of pleasure seekers from miles around.”
Source notes
"The Dawn," a New Jersey WPA publication; June 1936 issue, page 12. Found at the Jersey City Public Library's New Jersey Room. "Swimming hole a distant memory Once a splash in Haddonfield, Mountwell Pool fell by the wayside." Philly.com: https://articles.philly.com/2002-10-20/news/25351491_1_pool-floor-cement-pool-pool-propertySite originally submitted by Evan Kalish on January 7, 2015.
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