Staunton desegregated its public parks in the 1960s, but the sense in the local Black community that the city still favors Gypsy Hill Park – which was only open to local Black residents one day a year, “Negro Day,” for decades – is very much alive.
“My question is, why can Gypsy Hill get beautiful, updated bathrooms, and Montgomery Hall Park has these deplorable toilets that you have to go to,” a local reader wrote to me last week.
The reference there from the reader: the city has been quite excitedly touting its recently completed $2.7 million project to update the pool house at Gypsy Hill, which opened in 1889, adding a pool that opened to the White public in 1932.
ICYMI
The new building, which replaces the original 1958 pool house, features zero-barrier ground-level access, individual unisex restrooms for family privacy, a modernized concession stand, and a covered patio area.
Meanwhile, down at Montgomery Hall Park, 1.8 miles to the south of Gypsy Hill, which sits on land that was originally an antebellum estate built by slave labor in the 1820s, we have “deplorable toilets.”
A quick history here: Montgomery Hall Park was, from the 1940s into the late 1960s, the city’s “Black park.”
The city government purchased 148 acres of the estate in 1946, and put a limited budget toward its operations – a Negro Recreation Committee raised private money to run the park, and funded a pool that opened in 1949.
The park quickly grew into a destination for African Americans from across the region who had no other recreation options because of Jim Crow.
Visitors piled in by the busload in the summer; an estimated 18,000 people were on the grounds in the summer season, attracted by the pool, playgrounds and the historic two-story brick mansion that is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
ICYMI
- Staunton: Historical markers at Montgomery Hall Park continue ‘Long Road to Freedom’ tour
- Montgomery Hall Park now on National Register of Historic Places
- Montgomery Hall Park in Staunton now a Virginia landmark
- Historic marker memorializes Montgomery Hall Park history
- Montgomery Hall Park history preserved
“Our tax dollars should be used for both parks,” our reader wrote. “We need updated bathrooms at Montgomery Hall Park also. They are dirty and stink. I am a taxpayer, and I shouldn’t have to use a low-grade, stinky toilet, but have to go to Gypsy Hill for a decent bathroom.”
This is where we can quote William Faulkner’s famous line:
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
I hadn’t mentioned yet that after that one day a year that the park was open to Black residents, the city drained the pool and closed it for the season.
Jim Crow was unnecessarily cruel, quite obviously.
We should all be able to understand the lingering ill feelings from the local Black community, is what I’m getting at here.
We reached out to the city to find out what is going on with the issue raised by our AFP reader, and, good news, I guess, there is a project in the works at Montgomery Hall Park.
It was second in line in terms of improvements, but anyway.
We learned this week that the city has just awarded a $1.9 million project covering updates at both Gypsy Hill and Montgomery Hall Park, which, at Montgomery Hall Park, will include the renovation of two restroom buildings to comply with the American with Disabilities Act and renovations to the pool house that will include the addition of a family restroom and showers.
Per a city government spokesperson, the pool house renovations at Montgomery Hall Park will include three outdoor showers, and the new family restroom will be attached to the pool house, but it’s being designed to operate separately so it can remain open year-round.
The other two renovated restrooms near the basketball courts and at the end of Kenneth Jones Road will also be all-season facilities.
In terms of timing, the city is pushing to have the pool house renovations completed ahead of Memorial Day, which is the start of the summer swimming pool season.
A day late, perhaps, a few hundred thousand dollars short, definitely, putting the two projects side by side, but still, something.
The toilets, starting next year, won’t be dirty and stinky anymore.
All deliberate speed, and whatnot.
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Chris Graham
