Rediscovering home: Community spirit

The leadership shown by local residents jumps out from the pages of the Mineral County Historical Society file on the construction of the two swimming pools in Superior.

I have heard several times since my return that Superior remains a good place to raise children.  A couple driving their side-by-side on a portion of the Hiawatha Trail stopped to tell us they were glad to have raised their children here when they lived in Superior a number of years ago. 

This did not happen by accident.   

The first pool was built in 1936 as a “living demonstration of community spirit,” according to the Mineral Independent. The community came together to build that pool after three children drowned in the Clark Fork River. Those leading the effort wanted a safe place for all of the county’s children to gather and swim. 

The Independent reported that local donations and volunteer labor built the pool situated about where the parking lot of Jackie’s Flowers is now. The community spirit created by that first effort helped make this the community a place where my friends and I could flourish.  

Longtime community names, still familiar to us today, led the effort. A committee composed of chairman O.J. Pike, Rev. E.G. McKnight, R.W. Spangler, Mrs. Robert Dunn and Mrs. Burma McDonald raised the necessary funding. Pike, Spangler and Arthur Jensen were in charge of construction planning. Max Crosby provided information about construction of the pool and agreed to survey the necessary ground at once. The Independent reported that $600 was pledged for the undertaking. It is unclear whether that was the entire cost of the pool construction. 

The newspaper reported a public dance in early June 1936 was expected to provide the remaining amount needed for the pool. 

Independent Publisher A.W. Williams saw the pool effort as a springboard for building a better community. His quote is long and from nearly 100 years ago, but carries an important lesson: 

“Here is an opportunity that should not be overlooked. Using the swimming pool as a starting point and awakening a community spirit will do much to improve conditions that will be reflected in a direct benefit to every person residing here. Form a community club period. Let every person get behind the movement. Keep out politics. Improve sidewalks and roads period. Plant trees. Make Superior a town with enthusiastic boosters. All of these things can be accomplished if public sentiment is aroused. The average citizen gladly contributes to the swimming pool. The same man will likewise contribute to civic betterment.” 

The pool was filled once a week from a hydrant. The cold water made the early morning swim lessons a challenge. By Friday, the water got warmer but also a little murky.  

In the spirit envisioned by Publisher Williams, the community once again came together in 1960 to build the heated pool in Horning Park.  (We often wondered, though, if the heater was working.) 

I thought the pool was formally dedicated in 1960, based on an Independent report that the dedication was scheduled for September 17, 1960. However, a subsequent edition said that while the “pool [was] in operation with filter and heater hooked up” in September of 1960, the formal dedication was postponed until the following year to allow the governor to attend. Unfortunately, the governor still sent a representative to the dedication on June 10, 1961. The Lions Club organized the dedication, held during the community’s annual celebration of that time, River Derby. 

Volunteers again helped build the pool and keep down the cost. The town council minutes state that the contractor had agreed to credit the town for the amount of labor furnished by the volunteers. Volunteers helped tie reinforcing steel and shovel crews fed the hopper of gunite mixer.  Gunite is a sprayed concrete. They moved washed sand to the site from stockpiles from the “interstate bridge west of town.” 

Town Clerk Elsie M. Hanson sought donations of at least $100 or more from local organizations to “help finance the building of the bathhouses and the fences and concrete deck.” (My teenage dad worked on the George Hanson ranch, not the Otto Hansen place as I said in a prior column. The Quartz news in the July 20, 1939, Mineral Independent, noted: “Lee Moats of Superior has a haying job here.” The arrival of a “town kid” was news.)  

A donation of an undisclosed amount for the new pool came from the Safety Department of Diamond National Corporation. Individuals also donated. Sam Guttu, Ed Sansom and Perry Oakley pledged their annual town council stipends to the effort.  Another familiar name to Superior, John Anderson, was mayor when the community rallied to upgrade the pool.   

Again, the effort to boost the community was not limited to just the new pool. Coinciding with the pool dedication was the kickoff of the “Wooden Stick Match” campaign promoting Superior. More than five million safety matches arrived that morning, packaged in boxes with a map of Montana and a star representing Superior. The boxes labeled Superior as “Home of the Stick Match.” 

The pool itself was paid for with $36,927 in general obligation bonds, signed by then-Mayor John Anderson. Approximately $4,000 more was needed to finish the fence, bathhouses and deck.  

Crews troweled the white marble Marcite finish on the pool on August 20-21, 1960.  On August 21, water began pouring into the pool.  The water not only came through the 1 ¼-inch supply line but also through a canvas hose attached to a hydrant.  It took nearly 30 hours to fill the 132,000-gallon pool. 

A variety of repairs led to the decision to close the pool in 2017. 

The local nonprofit, Mineral County Pool in the Park, is working to reawaken the “community spirit” that built the hydrant-filled pool nearly 100 years ago.  I humbly channel A.W. Williams in my hope the efforts of these “enthusiastic boosters” will not only bring us a pool, but also “arouse public sentiment” toward “civic betterment” that promises “a direct benefit to every person residing here.”