South Park’s past, present, future
By Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Built in 1927, the historic South Park Cascades were a manmade water feature using stratified rock quarried from the park itself. The brainchild of Paul B. Riis, the famed Swiss-born landscape architect, the Cascades were carefully composed to evoke a network of waterfalls and wading pools.
By Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
The Cascades are now open to the public once again. The large stone pools along with the cascading waterfalls serve as a water feature at which the public can soak up the sights and sounds of the park’s natural heritage and immerse themselves in nature.
Photos: Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
The Cascades in the spring with the Redbuds in bloom with the Oliver Miller Homestead in the background
A black and white photograph depicting a glimmering pool edged in natural rock appeared on the screen at the front of Peters Township Public Library’s multipurpose room last month.
“Anybody in the audience swim in that pool?” asked Carolyn Savikas, chair of Friends of South Park.
A few hands went up.
“I spent a lot of time here myself,” Savikas said. “Fun fact: the stone was quarried in Sleepy Hollow. It contained 800,000 gallons of water. And the cost of all the pools – if you remember, there were several pools – was $250,000.”
South Park’s Corrigan Drive Pool closed in 1978, when repairs became too costly, Savikas said, and today serves as the site of a landscaping business.
The pool was designed by naturalist and conservationist Paul Riis, who also created the Cascades and several shelters on the park’s then-1,481 acres.
“He wanted to design South Park and everything in it as the Common Man’s Country Club,” Savikas said. “There weren’t a lot of recreation opportunities available for working men in 1931. That’s why South Park and North Park had a golf course, had swimming pools, so that the people could come out and enjoy it.”
Today, South Park is a sprawling, 2,013-acre park that boasts bocce courts and trails, a large, colorful playground and open-air theater.
Savikas recounted over Zoom South Park’s history for those in attendance June 7 at Peters Township Library, including the story of how the county purchased 18 bison for $2,700 in 1927. (Sioux Chief Two Eagle, a princess and children were brought to South Park to care for the bison.)
Following the brief but fascinating history lesson, Barbara Brewton, institutional giving and project manager for the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, took to the podium to talk recent and ongoing park projects.
“Nevin Shelter is one of the original structures designed by Paul Riis. It actually has a beautiful fireplace in it,” Brewton said. “It was deteriorating, the mortar in between the stones was falling out. It was just a matter of time, really, before the structure fell down.”
Thanks to a generous donation by a couple, the Nevin Shelter was recently renovated. A new slate roof and handcrafted picnic table are among its updated features.
“If you get up to Nevin Shelter, it’s not too far from the parking lot, it’s really worth seeing,” Brewton said.
The parks foundation recently received a grant to renovate Edgebrook Shelter, another Riis masterpiece, and work is scheduled to be completed this year. The Cascades were restored in 2021.
“Another project that we’re in development is the Paul Riis Trail,” Brewton said. “We’ll be expanding the trail to connect a lot of these points of interest that we’ve already been talking about. We’re very excited about this.”
Also exciting: The green parking lot located near the old fairgrounds, which is now a walking track.
To create the progressive green parking lot, fewer than 20 parking spaces were removed from the old lot, and the entire area was converted into a pretty, eco-friendly space.
“It was in pretty bad shape. So it (this project) was really to showcase what a green parking solution could look like,” Brewton said. “It’s a two-and-a-half acre permeable parking lot. What this was intended to do was to take storm water, hold it in underground tanks and slowly release it, and try to help prevent the kind of flooding … that is very problematic in South Park. It captures 95% of the rain that falls on it. That’s about two-and-a-half million gallons of storm water annually.”
Gravel beds beneath the parking lot can hold up to 90,000 gallons of water at any time, she added.
The green parking lot also features trees that reduce carbon dioxide in the park and native plants in the rain gardens. The boardwalk is a favorite place for people to stroll.
“It’s really the Cadillac of a green parking solution. It’s really been kind of a showcase for other organizations that are looking at this kind of concept,” Brewton said, noting the project was funded through the parks foundation and the county.
Other recent projects include repairing the Catfish Run streamside, planting meadows and trees throughout the park, and building an outdoor classroom.
Friends of South Park and the Allegheny County Parks Foundation could not upkeep and improve the park without generous donations of time and money from the community or partnerships with area organizations, Brewton said.
“I’m really proud of what we’ve done. We really support each other,” she said. “The partnerships are really what support the parks. Working together, we can accomplish so much more.”
To learn more about Friends of South Park, or to get involved, visit https://southparkfriends.com/.
For more information on the Allegheny County Parks Foundation, go to https://acparksfoundation.org/.