Guest Column
By Jim Parsons—7/1994
July of 1930 wasn’t just a very warm month – it was torrid. At least my mother claims it was. Of course she was carrying all 10 ½ pounds of me until the 14th when Dr. Kenny had to interrupt his golf game at the Northampton Country Club to walk across the street to officiate my debut. How the rest of Dr. Kenny’s round went that day isn’t recorded but for my mother the expression “blessed relief” was an understatement.
I like to thing that it was in my honor that Look Park had been officially dedicated just nine days before since we been close friends these 64 years. Yes, there are countless others with similar claims and attachment to these wondrous acres and I want to assure them that Frank Newhall and I understand.
But I was there when they built the lake and the theatre; I was there in full Chinese costume for the elementary schools’ international festival just prior to World War 11; I was finding ancient golf balls as a high school sophomore cleaning leaves from the laurel on its hillsides; I ate Sugar Daddies with a zeal unmatched in history; I learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor on my way home from a final Sunday school picnic of the year; I saw archery contests, gas motorized model planes self-destruct; I learned about the terrible destruction and death which covered its acres in 1874; I learned to forever associate the aroma of chlorine with that locker room where even the weight, style and itchiness of a woolen suit couldn’t diminish the joy of the pool.
The continuing marvel to me is that this beloved park is still as new and magical as the day it opened, and it will continue to be so with the recently announced plan of the trustees and Park Director for the former pool area.
As they have done year after year throughout its history, those who guide the park’s destiny are marking the right choices with their plans for water activities, miniature golf and even a carousel. Once again they have proven that they are attuned both to the times and the interest of park visitors.
When the first ball is hit on the new look Park miniature golf links it will be a reminder that all of Look Park was once a golf course, the Warner’s Meadow Golf Club, which was started almost a century ago in 1898. The present administration building still occasionally discloses another clue that it once was the golf clubhouse when it sat on the hill overlooking the totem pole meadow.
The golf club was born largely through the efforts of Smith College students and faculty. They raised $350 while city residents raised $300. The newly formed group rented the land from John Warner and for the next 10 years the club flourished. There were 250 members equally divided between the Smith students and citizens. Golf on Sunday was taboo, although some members smuggled golf clubs to the distant holes in their pant legs for a few surreptitious swings.
Fortunately (for Look Park), two factors intervened to motivate locals to organize a golf club of their own. Not being able to play on Sundays was very unpopular with the male golfing set. But it was land owner John Warner’s combination of action and inaction which settled the issue. Warner’s seemingly indifference to renewing the lease irritated the club’s leaders. Then he did the unforgivable. He raised the rent of the land by 10 percent from $250 to $300 a year!
Consequently, the Northampton Country Club was born in 1908 when a group of Northampton’s leading citizens met in city hall. Women attended but soon left for other activities leaving the details of the “divorce” from Warner’s Meadow to their spouses. A corporation was formed, shares were sold and plans made to purchase the land of the Nonotuck Silk Mills just across the river from Warner’s Meadow. For a few years golf was played on both sides of the Mill River, but declining membership during the years of the First World War influenced the NCC to restrict its course to its own property and the old course reverted to farm land.
At the same time that the park was opening, miniature golf was flourishing across the street from the park’s secondary entrance where Route 9 and Florence Street intersect. On the property near Clementine’s and Stowell Street was a miniature golf course complete with lighting for night play. It was one of the Tom Thumb Miniature Golf Courses popular throughout the country at that time. Its popularity waned here with the advent of the Depression.
If golf can make its way back to “Warner’s Meadow” after all these years, who knows what’s next? Maybe we’ll see somewhere in the future two elements in the original plans for the park which never happened. Just as the lyrics of an old song proclaim that “Everything Old is New Again,” perhaps those old plans for canoeing on the Mill River and a mammoth toboggan slide may be just around the corner. Don’t worry about being cold. The plans call for a warm-up shed.
My 64 years with the park have made me confident that in years ahead the open-minded and visionary trustees and director will still be making the right decisions for Look Park and the people of our area. Just in case I’m not around I want them to know that I’ll be keeping an eye on things just down the street at Spring Grove.
Jim Parsons is a life-long resident of Northampton