Riverside Park once looked nothing like it does today. Not even close.
Longtime Iolan Donna Houser and Riverside Park aficionado gave this newcomer an overview of the park’s history and its significance.
In fact, the stadium’s Mustang locker room is named after her late husband, Ray, a longtime football coach. The Iola High School class of 1987 was instrumental in its removation.
“We moved to Iola 68 years ago,” said Houser. “I had a teaching job and he loved football and teaching history and that’s what he did… We were the smallest school in the league in ‘66. We played Coffeyville and Pittsburg and they were a lot bigger.”
On Feb. 26, 1938, it was announced a levee would be built around Riverside Park. The stadium was constructed in 1939.
In order to accommodate the new stadium, things had to be moved “a little bit,” Houser said.
Back then, surrey horse racing “was a big thing for Iola,” she said. “So they moved the race track to the west and put the football stadium where the fair stadium was.”
Glorious arches also once spanned the entry to the park.
In addition to the football stadium came the Community Building, the Iola Municipal Pool and a baseball grandstand. The architect was Garold A. Griffin. All the design and construction was funded by the Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration as part of Frank Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933. It brought the country out of the depths of the Great Depression.
The PWA provided the fundings and the WPA the labor.
Houser explained that both these agencies were very important in the forming of Riverside Park and the town had to vote for projects to be constructed.
August of 1939 ushered in a new era for Riverside Park and the Allen County Fairgrounds with around $250,000 put into the new park. The new amenities that came with that upgrade included a new race track, a concrete stadium, a new swimming pool, baseball diamond, pavilions, paved roads and even new ovens and tables for the picnic areas.
“I think Riverside Park is part of our lives… It’s convenient to get there. Our town is not that big and the people wanted it there. Riverside Park is a legacy Iolans will probably want forever even though we have floods there,” Houser jokes. “It was mainly trees because the river was next to it, I would say probably it was just a good place with shade.”
Some of the renovations implemented to the park since it was first constructed in the late 1930s included placing a sitting box on top of the press box for a spotter and putting new press boxes in after the stadium roof blew off in 1986. After the 2007 flood, the swimming pool was completely renovated, the New Community Building was erected, the track was rebuilt and the recreation building was constructed.
Riverside Park will continue to live inside the hearts of many Iola residents for years to come.
