Remains of a street car in the Argonne Forest at Possum Creek MetroPark – January 6, 2016
Welcome to Week 4 of Mystery Mondays. The answer to Week Three’s Mystery Photo is: The remains of a street car in the Argonne Forest at Possum Creek MetroPark in Dayton.
Streetcars from the 1920s once sat in Argonne Forest Park
Unfortunately, there wasn’t one person that answered correctly. The Rapid Fired Pizza certificates will have to stay put until next week. I took this photo on January 6, 2016 during an impromptu Winter hike.
Here are some interesting facts about the old Argonne Forest Park from history.metroparks.org.
Argonne Forest Park was founded in 1930 by Daytonian Null Hodapp, who returned from WWI and had a successful career as a judge in the area. Null purchased nearly 400 acres of wooded land along Germantown Pike and named the property Argonne Forest Park in honor of the Unit he served in during the war. Development of the park began with the construction of a veteran’s clubhouse. Behind the clubhouse, to the south, was a carnival-like midway. Development of the clubhouse area was followed by other additions. These included a swimming hole and diving platform, baseball diamond, shooting range, dance hall, pony and horse tracks, and a figure-eight auto race track.
It was not until World War II and gas rationing that crowds began to dwindle and the demise of Argonne Forest Park soon followed. After Hodapp’s death in 1945, some small parcels of land were sold off. In 1966, the park district bought the remaining land.
A part of the area today, still called Argonne Forest, is located in the northwest portion of the park. Dominated by tall beech trees, it is not unusual to hear the hoot of a great horned owl or see deer while walking the trails here. The close observer can still find hints of the original park. A low L-shaped wall, once part of the swimming pool, can still be seen and remains of three street cars are hidden on the forest floor. A large cement square, which may have been part of the dance floor, also remains. Most of the figure-eight auto track is now under a lake built by the Park District in 1979, but a hiking trail still follows portions of the old track. The building that was once the veterans’ clubhouse still stands on the southeast corner of Germantown Pike and Frytown Road. Behind it, some of the buildings that were part of the carnival midway remain.
I’d like to give special thanks to Amy Forsthoefel, Marketing Research Manager with Five Rivers MetroParks for providing me with research resources for this article.
We challenge you to tell us where in the Dayton area this photo was taken by filling out the form below. We’ll do a random drawing from all those with a correct answer and the winner will get 2 pizzas from Rapid Fired Pizza.
Enter here:
http://goo.gl/forms/dyU55fzc48
We’ll post the winner next Monday with details about the photo as well as a new photo to challenge your knowledge of the Dayton area.
Thanks for playing and good luck!
Here’s our Mystery Photo for Week Four:
Photo by Tom Gilliam of DaytonGram & Tom Gilliam Photography.
