GLEN OAK PARK’S PERGOLA

GLEN  OAK  PARK’S  PERGOLA

 

                                         NORMAN  V.  KELLY

 

As a kid way back before and during WW11 a trip to Glen Oak Park was a special thrill for us.  One good thing for a poor kid like me from ElVista was the fact that it was free. My pals and I spent a lot of time in Bradley Park because it was pretty close to where we lived and we could cut across the field where the bowling alley is there on Forest Hill. But when we went to Glen Oak Park is was usually some kind of family thing and we would go over there in three or four cars and stay most of the day. There were a lot of special things there including a small animal house which is still standing and the zoo.  The little lake was a special thing for us and of course in order to rent a boat that’s when money became an issue.  We never had a dime but an older brother or uncle would treat us and we had a lot of fun there.  Of course we did not have fishing equipment but the older men would rig us up with a hook and line and we would compete as to who could catch the biggest fish.  It was never me.

 

There at the lower part of the park was a statute of some big fat guy and great hills to ‘fly’ down on our bikes.  I loved the Pavilion and remember vividly having our eight grade picnic there and squirting the girls with our hidden squirt guns.  Once we put orange soda in them and that is when we got in trouble. It did not dawn on us that the girls would complain of being “All sticky,” thanks to us.

 

There was some strange little building there that we loved to play on, swinging from one piece of lumber to the next.  We got yelled at about that:  heck, how did we know that they called that thing a Pergola?  So what? To us it was just a shady place to play.  

 

Actually the Pergola has quite a history and in fact they were being built in the 1400’s over in Europe and especially Italy.  In Italian the word Pergola means a

“Close walk of boughs.”  The one located in our park was built around 1894, maybe later but it was there before Robert Ingersoll’s statue and that was dedicated in 1911. I feel certain the park district could come up with the date and the bill for construction but that would take a lot of work. In 1900 and beyond the Peoria Park District spent quite a sum of money landscaping the lower section of the park and the lower entrance. That included a sunken garden, a fountain and a lot of other features that made it a very beautiful place for folks to relax.

 

Around 1912 a “New Pergola’ was planned and in 1917 contracts were signed and the new pergola was constructed. It was built of wood and concrete and stood there for many years. In 1918 it was opened to the public and folks from ‘hither and yon” came to Peoria to visit our parks and have their pictures taken in from of the new Pergola. The landscaping was completed and the entire area impressed people for years to come.  The new Pergola was rebuilt and renovated by local architect Frederick J. Klein a man that performed wonders here in Peoria, Illinois. The contractor was the Stuffing Brothers, and there work was always praised here in Peoria, Illinois.  I think by 2007 the final restoring of the Pergola was completed.  For 18 years during the Steamboat races I ran in to the park entrance and glanced up at Ingersoll and that funny little building up there on the hill where I used to play.  You know, honestly I have no idea what we called it, or if we had a name for it at all.  No wonder they yelled at us, my goodness we were playing on a thing they called a Pergola! You know I betch’a those guys called a ‘crick’ a creek, you think?

Editor’s Note; Norm is a Peoria Historian, author and a monthly contributor to

50 plus News & Views. This story is for his friend, Julie Cox.