Yesterday In RSP History

Monday, May 31, 1897

Just three days after its inauguration, a trolley carried people from Liverpool to the grand opening of Rock Springs Park on Memorial Day 1897. The trolley bridge remains are now the Dr. David S. Pugh Memorial Overlook. Read more at http://rockspringspark.blogspot.com/2011/06/chester-bridge-overlook.html.

Friday, May 31, 1940

Rochester School Picnic. Excursion to Rock Springs Park sponsored by the Rochester Band Mothers and Kunsman Brothers Jewelers for the benefit of the Rochester High School Band. Leave Rochester at 9:30 a.m. and Return at 10:00 p.m. Arrive at the Park at 12:30 p.m. and Leave 7:00 p.m. (Daylight Savings Time) Round Trip Fare: Adults 50 cents, Students 25 cents. Free dancing to Fate Marable and his "Madcap Cotton Pickers." Come along and help boost the band! Tickets on sale at Hetzel Drug Store and Gordon's Pharmacy in Rochester, Edwards' Pharmacy, Freedom and Citizen's Pharmacy, Monaca. (The Daily Times, May 29, 1940.)

Chester Bridge Overlook

I was saddened to read that the Chester Overlook, now the Dr. David S. Pugh Memorial Overlook, has been vandalized since it reopened last year. (Read more here.) The overlook began as the southern portal of the original Chester Bridge built to connect East Liverpool with the new town of Chester in 1897. Just three days after its inauguration, a trolley carried people from Liverpool to the grand opening of Rock Springs Park on Memorial Day 1897.



The photograph above shows the Overlook as I remember seeing it during my childhood. Below, the outline reveals where a toll booth once stood before my time.


Ironically, the photograph below, from the Review’s article, reveals the Jennings Randolph Bridge in the background through the gap created when vandals “pried up large stone blocks from the top of the wall and tossed them into the river.” The original Chester Bridge marked the beginning of the life of Rock Springs Amusement Park while the truss bridge in the distance marked its end. (Photo by Nancy Tullis of the East Liverpool Review)