Waterloo Firemen's Park

ON WISCONSIN : TRAVEL :

Prime days at the park: ball games and bands
Posted: June 24, 2005


Dennis McCann
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Waterloo - Dorothy Jensen notes that one could easily miss Firemen's Park, so far off the main drag it sits and not on the way to anywhere.

And she's right. In the many times I've met her Waterloo, I never noticed the park's great stone entrance, never saw its sprawling grounds and baseball fields, never heard of its early reputation as the most famous park in Wisconsin, and certainly never imagined a small town park would be deserving of its own full-length history.

But Jensen, who once lived in a house that faced the park, thought otherwise. And having now visited the park and read her new "Waterloo Firemen's Park: By the People, For the People," I would agree that on the occasion of the park's 100th birthday it is worth the town's while to honor the playing ground that once put Waterloo on the map, and which for years brought former Waterlooans home to remember where it all began.

Before it became Firemen's Park the grove of trees along the Maunesha River here was known as Lum's Woods, and nearly became known as a chicken farm. At least that's the story that goes back more than a century to when local firefighters were looking for a park site and a man named Faultersack was looking to site his chicken farm. By some accounts, owner Lum must have wanted a park in perpetuity more than poultry in a pot because he took less than market value from the Fire Department.

Out to dinner
So the department got its land, 36 hilly and occasionally swampy acres, and on July 4, 1905, it hosted a picnic to raise money for improvements, an event the local Waterloo Democrat saw as every citizen's duty. "Do not bother to get dinner at home on the Fourth," the paper declared. "Go up to the park and get a good feed, and help on a most worthy movement at the same time."

55184Waterloo Firemen's Park
Click to enlarge

Graphic/Bob Veierstahler

For the people

In 1906, dinner was served to 500 guests, the home nine won the baseball game, A. Crump won the potato race and Herman Becker the sack race.
About The Book
Proceeds from Dorothy Jensen's "Waterloo Firemen's Park" will go to the Waterloo Area Historical Society. The book is available from either Waterloo City Hall or Carousel Antiques in Waterloo, or can be ordered online from http://www.authorhouse.com/.
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Many did, and after that day of food and drink and fireworks and baseball the improvement movement was under way. Spearheaded by local businessman Lutz Failinger, the task of converting Lum's Woods into worthy civic space picked up steam. All labor was by volunteers, usually by men who walked to the park with shovels after their normal day's labors were done. Ball fields were raised to escape rising water, pavilions were built, paths created. Materials were donated, or purchased with money raised through various efforts.

So swift was the pace of progress that by 1906 a grand picnic - featuring, as always, baseball and fireworks - was advertised, such guaranteed fun that the paper offered a $10 reward to anyone who attended and did not have fun. Dinner was served to 500 guests, the home nine won the baseball game, A. Crump won the potato race and Herman Becker the sack race.

Dances and homecomings
The formal dedication in 1907 drew an even larger crowd, along with every politician who could take a breath and give a speech, and a one-ton ox was roasted on a spit for the firemen's feast. (A good time was had by all, especially by one young man who had been over-served and woke to find himself stuffed in the cooling carcass of a one-ton ox.) The two-day fall festival in 1908 was the biggest event in community history, featuring five ball games and four bands - one was the Milwaukee Journal Band. The first day was Democrats' Day, which drew Milwaukee Mayor David Rose and his 50-man marching unit, while the second day was Republicans' Day, which lured state officials.

Earnings from such big events led to more improvements, including a merry-go-round (later replaced by a 1911 C.W. Parker Carousel which, after much-needed restoration in recent years, continues to delight thousands of park visitors each year) and a pavilion, which allowed for popular barn dances hosted by radio stations from Milwaukee and Chicago. Dances were among the most treasured memories Jensen found when she interviewed old-timers about the park.

But it was as host site for community homecomings that the park came into its own.

The first, just months after the inaugural picnic in 1905, was scheduled for three days and beyond the reunion aspect of old settlers and old soldiers featured the much-anticipated baseball showdown between the Waterloo Blue Jackets, whose roots were in Civil War service, and their old rivals, the Marshall "Never Sweats." (Old being the operative word, each team was urged to provide its own surgeon and the pre-game woofing over underage ringers was ferocious.)

A rousing success
Hundreds attended the homecoming, coming from far and wide to be greeted at the train station by the Waterloo Cornet Band and hosted in the homes of proud residents. Two former governors, William D. Hoard and George W. Peck - "an old Jefferson County man," he called himself - were in attendance, and, of course, both were asked to speak.

The second homecoming 10 years later was even larger, stretching over four days, and by 1925 more ex-residents returned to Waterloo than there were current residents to greet them. The city's rousing success with homecomings in Firemen's Park got Waterloo featured in Billboard magazine, which credited the city with creating such civic reunions.

Baseball and music continued to be major uses of the park in succeeding decades - the roster of band leaders who appeared there includes Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller and on and on - until changes in society and the economy led to reduced activity from the 1950s-'70s.

Then, in the tradition of the volunteers who had built it, their descendants got involved in renovating and replacing park buildings and other improvements. The July 4 celebration was revived, and the restoration of the carousel, now on the national historic register, brought new visitors.

There were no fireworks to be heard and seen on the early June day on which I visited the park and no baseball on the park's several diamonds, save for a few boys who had made their own game on the Little League field. But on July 4 the park will be humming as it has for 100 years, maybe not with oxen roasting on spits but with baseball and music and, when darkness falls, fireworks to light the night.

As Fred High, who discovered the park when he played there with a vaudeville troupe, wrote in that 1924 Billboard story, Firemen's Park is a splendid example of cooperation, "and proves that it is not the size of a town nor the wealth of its citizens that counts most, but the spirit of the people."

Or, you could say, amazing what can be done when you play ball with people.




From the June 26, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel