A community in East St. Louis is getting its ‘source of fun’ back with a new pool
Terrell Cole has fond memories of Pop Myles Pool. He remembers his mom working at the concession stand, various gatherings at the pool and long lines of kids waiting to get popcorn and cotton candy. It’s where the East St. Louis native learned to swim.
“My life was (that) pool,” Cole, who now lives in Champaign, said. “Every morning, we got up and went to the pool with my mother because she ran the concession stand, and we were in the water learning how to swim. That’s how we became swimmers. That’s how I was able to get certified the way I did because other people couldn’t do it. That’s what I wanted to do. Then, I came to Champaign and started working as a swim instructor with white people and they were like, “whoa, who is this dude?”
Cole, 65, was the pool’s former manager and swim instructor. Now, he laments the loss of a place that meant so much to him and his family. The Pop Myles Pool has been unused for at least seven years and was the only pool in the city before it closed down.
“It’s just sad because the kids have nowhere to go swimming,” Cole said. “The pool is my life. I learned how to swim when I was 7 years old, became a lifeguard at 15, became certified at St. Louis University to be a water safety instructor….I’m still hurt today when I see trees and weeds growing up in the doggone pool. That’s sad.”
A space that once represented a vibrant social scene in East St. Louis is now filled with dirty water and debris. But, with incoming state money, the East St. Louis Park District wants to fix that.
The $46 billion state budget for the next fiscal year, which was signed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker last month, includes a $3 million allocation for construction of a new pool and other facilities. The grant will be given to the park district from the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
“It’s pretty exciting for us to even imagine putting a brand new pool here and opening it up for our kids,” said Irma Golliday, director of the East St. Louis Park District.
Golliday said the district is in the beginning stages of construction and design plans, but is hoping for construction to begin next year and for the pool to open in 2024. Preliminary plans for the new complex include building a new pool, a new locker room facility and a splash park for younger kids.
She said she hasn’t received notification about the recent allocation, but she said the district has actively applied for funding since a leak made the old pool defunct.
“If everything goes OK and we get it bidded out and we get the bids accepted and everything is lined up because, you know, you have to get your licenses, your permits, you have to get the go-ahead from the Illinois Department of Public Health,” Golliday said about implementation plans. “There’s so many governmental agencies that you have to go through to get the bottom layer cleared before we can start with construction.”
‘The source of fun’
Golliday has served as the director of the East St. Louis Park District since 2005. She remembers frequenting the pool in Lincoln Park as a kid who grew up in the south side of the city.
“That pool was the source of fun for kids in East St. Louis,” Golliday said. “I lived in the south end and we would walk to Lincoln Park. We went swimming every weekend. We had the splash parties on Tuesdays. It was a big meeting ground for children in East St. Louis. That’s when everybody from all over town would meet, so therefore, you got a chance to meet the kids from East Side, Clark…but Lincoln is the high school that I went to then, and we had fun. It was fun. They had a DJ there. Tuesday night was the night. If you had money to get a new outfit, that was a place to show your new outfit off.”
It once was one of the only pools where Black people could swim. Formed in 1957, the Pop Myles Pool, formerly known as Lincoln Park Pool, was a part of the city’s segregated south end, where Black residents typically stayed at the time. The pool eventually became integrated and was later named in honor of Pop Myles, an East St. Louis community leader.
Golliday said retaining the name for the new pool is pending park district board approval, but she’s aware of Myles’ legacy in East St. Louis.
“Pop Myles was one of the original people who supported Lincoln Park,” Golliday said. “I think he was the pool manager, but he was also known for just supporting the kids and athletics like boxing, almost like a one-man-show as far as the kids were concerned. He had a heck of a reputation being a youth leader in East St. Louis.”
Arthur Johnson, a former professional boxer, trained under the late leader when he had his boxing program in the city. Johnson, 56, said he’d always see Myles working at the pool when he trained in Lincoln Park. Johnson now has his own boxing program in East St. Louis, Flash Boxing & Activity Center. He said having a pool in the area will keep kids out of trouble.
“It doesn’t really have to be all about the swimming,” Johnson said. “Them meeting there can also steer them from trouble and give them another opportunity for a lot of other things to happen in life and that can be the catalyst for something great in their lives.”
Golliday agrees, which is why she said she’s adamant about bringing the pool back.
“What we’re trying to do is get the kids off the street,” Golliday said. “Of course, we’re going to put up a very nice building for them to go into. It’s gonna have the concession stand on it as we had before, the changing rooms of course will be updated, so we’re going to have everything that the other one had. We just don’t need those big, bulky things that they had in 1957.”
Receiving state help
In 2014, former Gov. Pat Quinn visited the pool and announced a $2.5 million investment for infrastructure improvements, but the park district didn’t receive the funding until 2019, through the Secretary of State’s office. Golliday said the funding was announced at the end of Quinn’s term, and her team consistently contacted former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office about the funds but never heard back.
A representative from the Secretary of State’s office couldn’t speculate on the delay, but mentioned that the funds were disbursed in 2019 because that’s when it was allocated to their budget. Golliday said the park district still has the bulk of those funds and hasn’t used it mainly because she realized that the complex really needs a major overhaul instead of simply rehabbing it, which requires more money.
“There was a leak, and the leak was structural, which meant you had to tear it all out to redo it,” Golliday said about the pool’s repairs. “It was so old. It wasn’t worth even trying to do it, and the cost would’ve been off the chain. How long would it last and could it even be fixed? That was the question, so it was really time to give these kids here in East St. Louis a newer facility.”
She hopes that those funds along with the new allocation will be enough to complete the project, but she doesn’t know how much the full project will cost because design plans are still underway.
However, Terrell Cole said he doesn’t trust the park district handling the funds, given the pool being vacant for a long time.
“I just hope that they don’t give it to the park board or give it to the politicians,” Cole said. “That’s the only way it’s going to be spent right.”
Golliday wants to assure residents that the park district is committed to putting a pool back in East St. Louis.
“You always want to say we’re going to do this right,” Golliday said. “We’re dependent on that group here and this group here, but as long as I’m the director, I want to say we’re going to do everything at the East St. Louis Park District to make sure the funds are spent in the correct manner and to get that pool open so that the people in East St. Louis can enjoy it.”
The $3 million grant is rolled over from fiscal year 2022 and could be disbursed before July 1, the start of fiscal year 2023.
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This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
