Salina Post proudly presents Flashback Friday in partnership with the Smoky Hill Museum. Enjoy a weekly tidbit of local history from the staff at Salina Post and the Smoky Hill Museum as we present "Salina-Flashback Fridays."
By SALINA POST
In the early 1900s, an ambitious Salina businessman, John L. Bishop, decided to build a natatorium on the corner of East Ash Street and North Santa Fe Avenue.
The Salina Natatorium opened in 1907. As short-lived as the swimming pool was, many Salina residents used it daily for leisure, swimming lessons and sports for its three-year existence.
According to an article in the Monday, Aug. 20, 1907 edition of the National Field Newspaper, the construction company Wilmarth and Zerbe built the three-story building that would house the natatorium.
Water used by the Kansas Ice and Cold Storage for its plant operations next door provided warm water after it was air-cooled from boiling temperatures.
Residents enjoyed the 45 by 90-feet swimming pool with a 3-feet-deep shallow end and an 8-feet deep end.
According to the Smoky Hill Museum, swimming coaches regularly held basic swimming lessons and hosted sporting events that drew residents from surrounding towns like Concordia and Abilene.
The three-story building became Kansas's largest natatorium, and many speculated it may have been the largest in the United States.
Once built, Bishop rented the natatorium to J. J. Ollinger for management.
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In multiple articles by various papers from 1907 to 1910, provided by the Smoky Hill Museum, writers document how much the community adored the swimming arena and even enjoyed it in the winter when Ollinger transformed the swimming pool into an ice skating rink.
"A floor will be built over the swimming pool, and it will make a rink 100 by 50 feet in size and without any posts to interfere with skaters," said an author in the Tuesday, Aug. 20, 1907, edition of the Salina Evening Journal. "The natatorium will make the best skating rink that has ever been in Salina."
Once the weather cooled each winter, Ollinger opened the natatorium as a skating rink, and each summer, he unveiled the pool.
The community swimming area fell into turmoil early in its life, with a young man injured in an accident and later dying from his injuries.
In a Saturday, Aug. 20, 1909, article in the Salina Evening Journal, the writer details the diving accident on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1909, of 19-year-old Salina resident Joseph Langer.
"Joe was at the natatorium and upon taking a dive into the water struck on his head, receiving a fracture at the base of his brain, which caused paralysis and finally death," the author wrote.
One year later, in 1910, J. A. Hollinger purchased half of Ollinger's business and turned the building into a garage for the Ollinger Motor Car Company.
Many residents complained about the loss of the Salina Natatorium, but Hollinger continued with his plan to transform the swimming area into a grand car garage.
The natatorium closed for good before its final summer in 1910, after Hollinger announced the construction of the garage.