Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
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In the late 1930s, I spent quite a bit of time at the playground on East Eighth Street. It ran along the Big Four railroad track, between Walnut and Plum streets.
There was a softball diamond at one end of the area, but the lion’s share of the park was devoted to all kinds of playground equipment. There were swings, sliding boards, teeter-totters and one or those rotating platforms that kids can make spin really fast. I don’t know what they call those things. Then there was a really great clay croquet court.
But my favorite thing in that playground was a large wire cage, maybe 12 or 15 feet square and seven feet tall. It held some natural vegetation and a variety of Ohio wildlife. One week it might hold a few squirrels, or a raccoon. A few weeks later, it might hold a fox.
But my favorite was a giant owl. All of us kids could get really close to that owl, and when I stared at it, it would stare right back at me. You just can’t outstare an owl.
Thanks to that playground, and the Marysville swimming pool, there was always something fun for kids to do.
Then one day, I overheard some boys talking about a new kind of playground that was coming to town. They said it was like at a little village, with tiny houses that youngsters could play in.
Wouldn’t that be great? When a bunch of us kids got together to play there, we could each have our own house. It would be like a miniature neighborhood. I asked one of those boys when this new miniature village would be built, and he said it was already under construction, and he had seen it. He said it was near the end of East Fifth Street.
After dinner that night, I rode my sister’s bicycle down Fifth Street to take a look for myself. By golly, he was right. I could see the tiny houses under construction. It was in the area where the United Dairy Farmer store stands today. The attached photograph shows two of the little houses. This was going to be a great new place for us kids to play.
But when I told my dad about it that night, he said it wasn’t a playground, and those little houses weren’t for kids. He said the owner was building a “tourist court” where people could stay overnight when they were traveling. Boy, was I disappointed.
Over the next few weeks I rode my sister’s bike a few times to take a look at the little houses. Before long, there were five or six of them. I thought that maybe my dad was wrong, because the houses were so small, I didn’t think they would hold a full size bed.
I found out that they were being built by a neighbor of ours, a man named Luther Liggett. He had a gas station at the corner of Fifth and Cherry Streets. Mr. Liggett’s son, Luther, who later became a Marysville attorney, was doing much of the construction himself.
Over the next couple of years or so, I kept my eye on those little houses. Every time I was near that area, I would admire them. And every time I saw them, I was sorry that place had not been made a playground for us kids.
Then one day when we rode by in our car, all of those little houses were gone. I don’t know where they went, but only recently I learned that they were sold to a Marysville couple, George and Virginia Morelock.
So I contacted their daughter, Becky, but those little houses were built before she was born. She knew nothing about them. I suppose they could have been sold to individuals, for I think they would probably have made a nice toolshed or something like that.
But it’s a shame someone in Marysville didn’t make a playground out of all those little houses. Just think of the fun all of us Marysville kids could have had.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com