Swimming In Seneca Park

by: Miriam Ganz

Swimming Races in Trout Lake at Seneca Park.
Image courtesy of the Rochester Museum & Science Center.

Swimming was an added feature early in Seneca Park’s life.   The first  “pool” was made by damming the stream  that  runs along the  gorge trail.  This filled a hole which can still be seen (although over more than a hundred years it has been filled in with trees, saplings and shrubbery).  The bathhouse for the pool stood facing west approximately where the Wegman Lodge now stands.  However,  there were two drawbacks to this bathing opportunity: first according to one report from a descendent of a young man who swam there the bottom was unpleasantly “squishy.”  The second drawback: no girls allowed.

In the early twenties, park officials turned their attention to the  bigger “Trout Lake”  to the south of the original swimming hole.  Even better, enlightened minds concluded that young ladies were also welcome to cool off on hot summer days in this  new larger swimming hole!

Participants in a city swim meet at Seneca Park.
Image courtesy of the Rochester Museum & Science Center.

Coed swimming was fine, but safety standards were far different from today.  Diving contests, races and any other activities took place in the shallow pool. 

In the  thirties the last pool in Seneca Park was built as a WPA project.   The new pool had locker rooms, a shower and foot bath, which brought swimmers out to either the shallow end for beginners, or the deep end for accomplished swimmers who could show off their dives from a regulation height diving board. 

Afternoons offered open swimming until four o’clock.   Evening swimming began at five and an entry fee was charged.   Countless day camps brought children from all over Rochester to the pool and later to the Wegman Lodge for lunch and crafts, bringing the whole swimming history of Seneca Park full circle.  

Sadly,  in the late seventies, the Seneca Park Pool was the scene of a devastating tragedy.  Early one afternoon, a thunder storm  approached.  The life guards ordered everyone out of the pool. As rain poured down, a group of day campers ran under a tree. Seconds later, lightning struck that tree. That unspeakable tragedy ended the story of swimming in Seneca Park.  Today a playground and an overflow zoo parking lot take up much of the space of the swimming pool.   I like to think that the laughter of the kids playing there now honors the memory of those beautiful little ones who were injured and died that terrible day.