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October 2008 update The Westside Improvement Association was recognized on Tuesday, October 21, as the outstanding civic organization Adopt-a-Spot sponsor by Keep Evansville Beautiful. Read the story in the Evansville Courier & Press.
July 2007 update After hard work, tender loving care and considerable assistance, the West Side Improvement Association can proclaim that our spot has been adopted. The spot – the flower beds in front the of the stone walls erected about 80 years ago as the gateway to Helfrich Recreation Field -- has been cleared of weeds, overgrown bushes and rubbish and planted with flowers. Our project, however, is only getting started, says Dot Berning, our Adopt-a-Spot co-chair. First, the flowerbeds must be watered throughout the growing season. Then there’s the future to consider. Dot said the effort was kept simple this year, partly because the space in front of the beds is being used to store and park construction materials and machinery used in the adjacent St. Joseph Avenue improvement now well under way. Our effort took flight on June 19 when members of the West Side Nut Club’s Class of ’07 arrived with spades, tiller and other equipment. Even the club’s fire truck got into the act. It was used to yank out the overgrown bushes that refused to give way to shovel and pickaxe. The ground around the walls was more than hard. It was stubborn – more rock than clay. Nevertheless, the new Nut Club members who undertook the clearing and tilling of the soil as part of their initiation activities were up to the task. Initiates participating in the effort included Chip Alstadt, Kyle Frank, Tom Herman, Ryan Lewis, Joe Pettijean and Jerry Smith. The workers were directed by Bob Reed, chairman of the club’s initiation program. He was assisted by a host of veteran club members. Later, after Fred Padget, our treasurer, hauled in two loads of mulch, our president DeAnna Outlaw, Dot, Fred and others planted the flowers that had been donated and purchased for the project. Leroy Weinzapfel, who maintains flowerbeds along Wabash Avenue, gave us the Red Sizzler cannas and Loew’s contributed two flats of the petunias. Dot said the planting also includes Agastache (sometimes referred to as hummingbird mint) and cleome. Since the planting Dot and DeAnna have developed a watering system. They take turns hooking a 150-foot hose to a water facet on the opposite side of the nearby ball diamond and dragging it to our spot, thoroughly watering the beds weekly. Meanwhile planning is underway for the future. The Nut Club has members interested in cleaning and repairing the walls after the nearby street work is completed. The walls were erected in the 1920s after the city acquired the property for recreational use. Senior citizens of the neighborhood remember it as Ricadona Park, a place to play and hang out. The walls were a gateway, of sorts, through which passed a winding, shady road, known as “Snake Street.” Much of the area has since been taken up by a middle school, fire station and parking lots. But the area still includes a golf course -- also built in the 1920s -- ball fields and some open space. The walls face a busy intersection – St. Joe and Maryland Street. Some West Side enthusiasts envision the space between the walls and street being added some day to the Adopt-a-Spot project to use as – who knows – rose garden, park benches, picnic tables, fountain, monument, splash pool or whatever is dream-able.
We need your help to keep West Side Evansville beautiful by Mel Runge We have adopted a spot through the Keep Evansville Beautiful program and need your assistance to plan, plant and maintain it. If you can donate time, money or plants please contact Dot Berning (424-8307) or George Thompson (426-1242), co-chairpersons for our project. Our spot is the northwest corner of St. Joseph and Maryland streets that, according to Berning, offers “no end to the possibilities.” Specifically our spot is the flower beds at the base of the two walls that once served as an entrance to an area that veteran West Siders with long memories remember as “a playground” and “beautiful woods.” Currently, especially this winter, the spot looks barren and neglected – a spot in need indeed of the tender loving care that we can provide with your help. “We want something really nice that the neighbors and passersby can enjoy,” Berning explained. Many long-time West Siders remember the area as “Ricadony Park.” That was prior to the construction of a firehouse and Helfrich Park School. A city park department official says the department has no recollection of the place that long ago, but a special 1914 edition of the West Side Herald, a short-lived neighborhood newspaper, noted that Mayor Benjamin Bosse was interested in the city acquiring the lovely “Ricadona Park” at St. Joe and Maryland as a site for circuses. At the time, the property was owned by the “Helfrich Trust,” the article noted. It had belonged to the Helfrich Lumber Manufacturing Co., according to old city maps at Central Library. (The special edition of the Herald, it’s interesting to note, commemorated the first West Side Fall Festival hosted by a group of West Siders before they adopted the name “Nut Club.”) The plaque on the left wall says that through the “untiring efforts” of Mayor Bosse the area became “Helfrich Recreation Field” in 1922, a place for Evansville citizens to “enjoy clean wholesome exercise and recreation.” The plaque on the right wall indicates the structures were erected in 1925 and names city officials and park board members of the day. Bosse was no longer mayor. Way back then (at sometime or other), Golfmoor Road ran between the entrance walls at Maryland and St. Joe, reports George P. Helfrich, who grew up in the neighborhood. The route was changed sometime before Helfrich Park School was built in the early 1960s. Now Golfmoor curves into Wessel Lane on the far side of the school. The West Siders with long memories remember the former Golfmoor route as “snake road.” The trees along the street formed a canopy over the winding route, giving it the feeling of a tunnel “shady, cool and especially wonderful in the summer time. That was before air conditioning,” one old timer noted. Today pedestrians walk between the walls at Maryland and St. Joe and run into a fence along the edge of a ball field, a much used facility but not particularly attractive. Outside the school property there is no playground. The school building itself replaced the tennis courts. The trees of a previous era are mostly gone. Helfrich Park is still a popular spot. It merely needs some tender loving care, for which the city’s park budget does not provide. With your help we will. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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© 2008 Westside Improvement Association, Inc. |
