Kagnew Station Swimming Pool
This is a view of the front
of the Kagnew swimming pool building at the corner of 1st Street and 'D' Avenue
South, looking toward the Roosevelt theater and on down the road. To the
immediate left and across the street from the pool was the STRATCOM barracks,
and down the road on the left was the ASA HQ Co. barracks. Across the street
from the entrance was the backstop for the ball field. The pool had one low
diving board, but had an unbelievable spring it on which double flips were made
easy! Just ouside the pool on the right was an enclosed sundeck and a wading
pool for the little ones. Pool construction began in 1957 and was completed in
1958.
Living directly across the street in
the STRATCOM barracks, I spent many hours at the pool with by friend "Bird"
Crowe. We usually stretched the diving board to it's limits and walked away
bruised sometimes from landing on bellies and backs, but never broke anything.
As everyone is aware of the type of weather we had, just about every day was a
good day to go for a swim or get some sun. The one thing I noticed though was
that the pool never seemed that busy. Bird and I were always able to have our
run of the place whenever we wanted. Here is a picture of me doing a little
"rotation" off the board.(Rick Fortney 69-70)