LOST HUNTINGTON #7: GOING FOR THE GOLD Traditional Cache

Welcome to the 2015 Cabell County GeoTrail: LOST HUNTINGTON, sponsored by the Cabell Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB)

This trail is comprised of 10 caches. 

Each site has a code word that you have to fill in on the LOST HUNTINGTON playcard which can be picked up at the Visitors Center.

Once these cards are turned in to the CVB and verified, you will be asked to fill out a very short information card and you will receive the 2015 custom made trackable geocoin. The contact information for the Cabell Huntington CVB is:

HISTORY

In 1945, a delegation of concerned citizens appeared before Huntington City Council and urged construction of a network of municipal swimming pools. Their plea fell on deaf ears.

Five years later, in 1950, a group of women, the Women's Inter-Club Council, began a determined on behalf of building city pools. The women argued that the construction costs could be covered by a three-year tax levy, which could raise an estimated $400,000. City Council put the proposed levy on the ballot and the voters approved it by a margin of 3 to 1.

Plans were drafted for construction of a large Olympic-sized pool at W. 12th Street and Memorial Boulevard and three smaller neighborhood pools -- at the A.D. Lewis Playground in the Fairfield neighborhood, on Everett Street in Guyandotte and a site donated by the A.F. Thompson Manufacturing Co., in Westmoreland. Planning and constructing the pools proved to be a lengthy process but they finally opened on Memorial Day, 1954, and were an immediate hit.

For decades, a day at one of Huntington's pools was a summer-time "must" for the city's youngsters. Many teenagers virtually lived at the pools each summer. And even a few young-at-heart oldsters could be spotted among the crowd of fun-seekers.

But in the mid-1990s attendance at Huntington's pools began a dramatic decline, as recreation tastes changed. It seemed that youngsters glued to their computers no longer were interested in a day at the pool. A consultant brought to town said municipal pools nationwide were experiencing similar attendance declines. Public pools were "dinosaurs," he said.

The decline in paid admissions couldn't have come at a worse time, as maintenance and repair costs on the aging pools were steadily increased. The result: a budget deficit that grew larger each summer.

Beset by lagging attendance and increased costs, the Olympic Pool was closed after the 2000 season. A volunteer effort got it briefly reopen in 2004, but then it closed permanently and was demolished in 2006. Today, its former site is a vacant lot. Of Huntington's four city pools, only the A.D. Lewis pool survives.