Beautiful park has many activities
By Peter Ciancone
On a cool, damp Friday morning, Olivia Wesley stood on Oakley Playground's soft rubber surface and pushed her 20-month-old daughter, Katelyn, in a swing.
Surrounded by the lush green trees and manicured lawns of Deming Park, a light breeze audible through the leaves, Wesley said they drive over from their home in Marshall, Ill., once a week or so.
The playground is one of the newest additions to the park, Terre Haute Top 40's favorite place to relax and enjoy the outdoors.
"She loves to come to the swings," Wesley said.
"Park," Katelyn said with obvious joy as she was swinging back.
"Park today," she elaborated as she neared her mother again.
"This is the nicest park that is closest to us," Wesley said of Deming Park, the largest of Terre Haute's 27 parks. Who would argue that it would be easy to find one more beautiful or with so many things to do?
Dennis Mahan and his 3-year-old son, Jakeb, came up from Sullivan to make a couple of purchases, and stopped at the park before heading back south.
"He likes coming here," Dennis said as Jakeb ran around the playground, chasing squirrels and looking for rabbits.
"Baby rabbits," Jakeb said.
Greg Ruark, superintendent of the Terre Haute Park and Recreation Department, said Deming is the most frequently used of city parks " because of the number of facilities. It's just a magnet for activity, plus the location is ideal."
The list of Deming Park's amenities reads like a wish list for any municipal park department: numerous shelters capable of harboring any size crowd; a large, public swimming pool with a water slide; tennis courts; an 18-hole Frisbee disc golf course; horseshoe facilities; two quiet ponds filled with ducks who'll gladly gobble your stale bread; the Clark-Landsbaum Holly Arboretum, a growing collection of specialty gardens tended by master gardeners of Terre Haute; the Spirit of Terre Haute miniature train ride; the Torner Center, which houses public meeting rooms as well as recreational activities such as pottery making and yoga; and the Oakley Playground, a modern, handicapped-accessible playground.
"It's large enough that you can do a number of activities there, often in the privacy of your own shelter," Ruark said. "It's such a large park, that allows us to do so many things at the same time."
Ruark said high on the department's priorities for Deming Park is the renovation of the pool, which is more than 40 years old and was last fully remodeled in 1986. It's a tremendously popular summer attraction, but it desperately needs a new liner.
On that same cool Friday, Courtney Anderson said she got a phone call from 4-year-old Jacob Peters. Anderson said she frequently baby-sits for him and his 2-year-old sister, Jasmine.
"Jacob called this morning and said, 'I cleaned my room, let's go to the park,'" she said. Jacob nodded his head in agreement as he took a break from climbing around the playground, his red ball cap turned to point the bill to the back.
Anderson picked up the two children, and together with her boyfriend, Patrick Rentowski, made the drive to Deming.
Rentowski is from Texas, and is looking to move to the area.
"I want to stay here," he said as he helped keep an eye on the two children as they crawled, jumped and spun on the playground equipment, protected from scrapes by the bouncy surface. Terre Haute is clean and safe, he said, and besides, it has Deming Park.
"We don't have anything like this in Dallas," Rentowski said. Thinking about it for a second, he added, "Well, we do, but you have to pay for it."
Peter Ciancone can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or pete.ciancone@tribstar.com.
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Tribune-Star file photo/Jim Avelis |
| Soft landing: Friends Jennie Ourand and Sarah Conant crash on their way down Snow Hill in Deming Park last December. |
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Deming Park info
For more information about Deming Park, or about the Terre Haute Park Department, call (812) 232-2727, or (812) 232-0147, or log on at www.terrehaute.in.gov.
DEMING PARK FACTS
Location: Entrance at the intersection of Fruitridge
Avenue and Ohio Boulevard.
Size: 160 acres.
Named for: Demas Deming Jr., (April 15, 1841 - March 7,
1922) a local banker and financier who sold the park property
to Terre Haute for $155,000 in 1921, donating $100,000 to then-Rose
Polytechnic Institute.
Dates for notable additions:
- Ponds, made by Isaac Walton League in the 1930s
- Pool, built 1962, renovated 1986
- Spirit of Terre Haute miniature train ride, 1982
- Torner Center, 1985
- National Register of Historic Places (with Ohio Boulevard),
1989
- Oakley Playground, 2003
Notable past elements, now removed:
- The park entry at Fruitridge Avenue and Ohio Boulevard at one
time was lined with iris gardens.
- In the 1930s, the Park added some zoo animals, including a
bear, monkeys, alligators and pony rides.
- Other ponds built during the same era as those remaining were
filled in during the 1950s.
Oddity: About 200 yards north of Poplar Street on Keane
Lane stands a rock and mortar obelisk on park property. Unmarked,
it has no documented history.
Source: Terre Haute Park and Recreation Department