Marking a milestone
Waterloo Park celebrates more than a century of sports, picnics ... and just plain fun
Waterloo Park celebrates 125 years
WATERLOO — As the City of Waterloo has evolved from a quiet village into a bustling city, one constant for more than a century has been Waterloo Park.
On Aug. 19, the 45 hectare (111 acre) park — known as “the jewel of the city” — will celebrate its 125th birthday in an event recognizing its past while also looking toward the future.
“I think it’s important to mark this year, so we can look back and also look forward,” said Paul McKone, chair of the Waterloo Park Advisory Committee, a committee of council that advises city staff and politicians on the park’s 20year master plan that was developed in 2009.
“It’s so important that we have this park, and I’m so glad they set aside this land at what was then the edge of town. It would be so difficult to make something like this at what is now the centre of town.”
The free event, organized by a volunteer group called Friends of Waterloo Park, starts at 5 p.m. at the bandshell and will include food trucks, activities for kids and families, games and a scavenger hunt. The movie “Grease” will be shown at 9 p.m. to close out the evening.
“We came together this past spring and really hit the ground running,” said Friends of Waterloo Park chair Carrie Nickerson of the six-person group, a subcommittee of the Waterloo Park Advisory Committee. “We really wanted to celebrate this milestone.”
The park’s humble beginnings actually stretch back 128 years to 1890, when the Village of Waterloo and the local board of trade acquired the 25-hectare (65-acre) Jacob Eby farm to create the town’s first park. It was originally named West Side Park and was on a slope near Silver Lake.
It was an era of growing interest in outdoor activities as families were beginning to move beyond their agricultural roots and relocate to towns and villages. In 1883, Ontario introduced the Public Parks Act to recognize the important role public parks played in the emerging urban lifestyle.
McKone said Waterloo Park still fulfils that purpose today, as more people move into the rapidly intensifying city core and require access to public green space.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” he noted.
On July 9, 1890, Waterloo council established a special park committee to consider ways to provide residents with more public park space. Three proposals were reviewed: A joint Berlin (now Kitchener) and Waterloo park on the Mount Hope Cemetery site, the development of the fairgrounds near William and Caroline streets, or the purchase of the Eby farm.
The town opted for the third option, and in December paid Eby’s widow, Elizabeth, $74 per acre for the land — or just under $5,000 — and it took two years to transform the area from a farm into a public park.
The new park officially opened Aug. 7, 1893, with bicycle races, live music and a baseball game between Galt and Guelph (Galt won 11-2).
A grandstand and a race track known as the “Oval” quickly became a popular attraction, and in 1895, more than 10,000 people came from across North America to watch the Canadian Wheelman’s Association Championship cycling race.
More buildings were added in subsequent years, including boathouses and swimming rafts on Silver Lake, the 1820 log schoolhouse, the bandstand and grass tennis courts. Around 1900, the area began to be referred to as Waterloo’s Park, though the name West Side Park continued to be used well into the 1920s.
The park began to grow as the city’s population increased, including 6 hectares (15 acres) added in 1917 and 14 hectares (34 acres) of land bordering on Westmount Road in 1958. It’s now roughly double the size it was when it first opened.
The Victoria Jubilee Gateway at the Young Street entrance was built in 1901 to commemorate the death of Queen Victoria. Citizens raised $1,200 for the gateway, which consisted of India limestone, brickwork and ornamental ironwork illuminated by nine electric globe ornamental lights.
Beginning in the 1950s, the park began to undergo more significant change. Lion’s Lagoon and the Park Inn concession were built around this time, and most of the original buildings (except the Eby farmhouse) started to be removed. The grandstand was demolished in 1953, the bandshell was removed in 1969, and the pavilion was taken down in 1972.
In 1957 the limestone gateway was removed to provide better vehicle access to the park, but in 1994 it was sold back to the city, refurbished and reinstalled in the park.
To celebrate 100 years since the original land purchase, the Victorian garden near the Young Street entrance was developed in 1990. And in 1996, the rehabilitation of Silver Lake included the construction of a replica of town founder Abraham Erb’s grist mill from 1816.
The City of Waterloo has spent millions in recent years to further enhance and upgrade the park.
In 2016, the city approved a $1.4million redesign to the central promenade (including $325,000 from the provincial government) that runs through the heart of the park, and nearly $2.3 million (including a $775,000 federal infrastructure grant) in 2013 to create a grand entrance on the park’s west side, fronting on Father David Bauer Drive across from the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex.
In 2012, the city also unveiled its first skateboard park, a popular 10,000-square-foot attraction on Father David Bauer Drive.
McKone said they’re also working on developing a three-kilometre interior perimeter walkway — “we’re hoping for a nicer name though,” he said — that will form a multi-use trail around the edge of the park, though they’re still in the very early planning stages of that project.
He said the residents who attended the opening more than a century ago would be happy with what the park has become today.
“I think they’d be delighted to see it’s much larger than it was originally, and they’d be delighted to see how much has changed, but also how much has stayed the same,” said McKone.
For more information, visit www.waterloo.ca and search for “Friends of Waterloo Park.”