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Westside Park (Chehalis, Washington)
Park in Chehalis, Washington From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Westside Park is located in Chehalis, Washington in the city's Pennsylvania Avenue-West Side Historic District which was catalogued on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1991.[1]
The 1-acre (0.40 ha) park contains basketball courts, a playground, and picnic areas.[2] It is known locally for its blossoming cherry trees, first planted in 1932,[3] and towering conifers.[4][5]
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History
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The park began in 1894[6][a] and the area became a playground and recreation area for the West Side School.[8] An initial motion to beautify the park and keep the area kept as a playground for the school were begun in 1905,[9] and upgrades were begun in 1906;[10] preparations to regrade the grounds took place in 1908.[11] Due to extensive damages to the school during the 1949 Olympia earthquake, the building was razed and the park became public.[12][13][14]
A memorial bench in the park was dedicated in 2007 to Gavin Crandell, a sixteen year-old who died the prior year after being struck by a train at a crossing 0.5 miles (0.80 km) away. Westside Park was a popular gathering spot for the teenager.[15]
In 2021, a volunteer neighborhood group, the Friends of Westside Park, organized as a non-profit 501(c)(3)[6] and began to oversee improvements to the park.[16] That same year, the group, in collaboration with the Chehalis Foundation, were able to receive a $20,000 earmark for the park from the Chehalis City Council as a beginning funding effort for future renovations.[2] An additional $95,000 in capital was added in 2023. Considered the first of potentially three phases of renovations, the $115,000 total funding is to aid in the purchase of new playground equipment, the construction of a perimeter fence, and to upgrade the sidewalks and parking areas to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).[17]
The welcome sign to the neighborhood, located in a traffic calming roundabout directly east of the park at the intersection of West and Pennsylvania, was destroyed in a hit-and-run incident in December 2023.[18]
Westside Park is unable to qualify for listing with the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) due to a loss of records during a 1910 fire at the defunct West Side School.[6]
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Notes
- Early reporting in the area spells the name of the school as West Side, and mentions the year of construction as 1907.[7]
References
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