It truly was two separate kind of entities.

You had this pastoral, lovely park in the cave, and then you had all this, uh, sideshow midway kind of area up on top of the hill.

And then, the skating rink was separate.

And there was a bandstand, and then the theater and all that.

There was just-- there was so, so many more moving parts.

[country fiddle music] [tractor engine flapping] [country fiddle music] [train horn blaring] The creation of parks happens for various reasons.

As these green spaces offer numerous benefits to an area and enhance the overall quality of life, parks are vital to a community, providing residents and visitors with places for relaxation, recreation, and connection with nature.

In North Springfield, Doling Park has been a unique and popular place for people to gather and has entertained folks for over a century.

My guest on this program is John Sellers, executive director emeritus with the History Museum on the Square.

We'll look back at the history of Doling Park in Springfield, Missouri.

You stay tuned.

ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine", a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Welcome to "OzarksWatch Video Magazine".

As always, I'm just tickled to death you're here.

I'm Dale Moore.

You know, in every city and town and metropolitan area in America, there's one thing that's in common, and that's a great park.

You can go to any city park in any place across this great country and you'll see somebody throwing a Frisbee, or walking their dog, or having a picnic lunch, or reading a book.

And Springfield, Greene County Missouri, by the way, happens to have some amazing city parks.

And I'm delighted today to join my good buddy and longtime friend, John Sellers, because we're going to talk parks today.

And specifically, we're going to talk about what may be arguably an iconic park, and that's the Doling Park.

It is one of a kind, for sure.

It is truly one of a kind.

We're going to get to that in a second.

But right now, I want to catch up with you because you are currently now the executive director emeritus.

Right.

Good heavens.

That just-- that's a title that just, I don't know what it means.

Now, I know you're like me.

When you retired, you got a rocking chair, well, much like our chairs here.

Yes, yeah.

And you've been sitting around doing nothing all day.

Just watching traffic go by.

And now that we've lied about that, what have you been up to lately?

Well, I'm still at the museum three days a week, and then I've got a radio show about history, talk about different events.

You're on there sometimes with me whenever you get a minute.

Yep.

And do that on Tuesday afternoons at 4 o'clock.

And still working at the museum and doing all kinds of stuff, getting ready for the big festival this weekend we're having downtown.

Lots going on.

Always lots going on.

So, you know, when we started talking about doing this show on Doling Park, I immediately was flooded with memories because most people of our age have a lot of great memories, certainly, of Doling Park.

Oh, absolutely.

And let's kind of roll back to the very beginning where all this started because it's one of those, you don't associate the name Doling with really meaning anything other than a park.

But it started out, he was a-- he was a farmer.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

That land where the park was was just federal land that anybody could pay for and buy and get a deed to.

And in the 1840s, the family paid $50 for 40 acres, $1.25 an acre.

And bought that 40 acres and built a cabin.

And mainly because it had a cave on it that had a spring that fed out of the cave, so they had pure water all the time.

Yeah.

And that was a great setup for them.

And so they built the cabin and farmed that area for 30 years.

And it's a Giboney, Giboney family.

Giboney family, right.

And about 1840-something.

Right.

So that was definitely antebellum Ozarks.

Oh, yeah.

You know, we're talking what, 20 years before the Civil War started?

Or 15.

Yeah, yep.

And I got to thinking about that.

So it was about-- and they migrated from Kentucky to here.

Right, right.

And I got to thinking that that was exactly the same period of time that my great grandparents moved from Kentucky.

It seems like there was a huge influx of people from Kentucky and Tennessee into the Ozarks about 1840-1845.

Right.

Right.

I wonder-- I wonder what drew them to this region.

Really, I don't know other than just-- Go West, young man?

Yeah, just so many of these people, so many of these people that you saw at that time were second and third sons.

They were primogenitor.

They weren't getting the-- everything from their family.

Yeah.

They had to go out and make their own.

And the opportunity to make their own was so much greater here.

And so, their options were much greater.

There was, like you said, buy land for $1.25 an acre, you're doing OK, you know?

And I saw where, when they bought this land, they eventually got-- it was called a land patent.

Right.

Now what was the difference between a land patent and a land grant, I wonder?

Because land grant schools are where they built universities.

Right, and I think that was donated land, and then a patent is where you had to pay for the land and then they actually certified the survey.

So it was nothing more than that.

And they were there for 30 years.

Right.

So that's a long time.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And my favorite part of this story about Doling Park is really how the guy stumbled onto it because he was looking for his cow.

Looking for a lost cow and found this cave and thought, well, this is really neat.

It's a great place.

I want this.

Yeah.

So now, the guy that paid $50 for it now sells it for $2,500 in 1883.

Sells it for $2,500 to a guy that had been a state rep for two terms, state rep. Had a business on Commercial Street, was an entrepreneur.

And he just wanted it.

He was going to live there and just thought it was the most beautiful place.

But then, he had second thoughts.

And that was kind of the center part of town at that time, really.

I mean, wasn't Commercial Street kind of the main drag?

Well, that was the main drag of North Springfield.

North Springfield.

North of Division.

Right, everything North of Division Street.

So, up until the two cities merged together in 1887.

So Doling was a state rep, two termer.

Two term state rep. Was he Republican or Democrat?

You know, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm willing to bet he was a Republican.

That's just my guess.

Uh, probably.

Yeah, more than likely.

Politics of the time, being what they were.

Well, no.

Well, maybe at that time.

Yeah, possibly.

So he's out looking for a cow and he stumbles onto a cave.

Whether that's true or not, that's a great story.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then he buys it and plans to build a place there and live.

And then he thinks, you know, this would be a great place for a park.

Yeah.

And I don't know what-- I don't know what got that in his head.

Yeah, and I guess him and his son-- his son, Robert-- was in on it too.

What business was Doling in on Commercial?

He was a merchant on Commercial Street.

Just a dry goods kind of guy?

OK. And so, they started off with this thing and he turned it-- it was called Doling's Park from 1880 to about 1907.

Right.

So-- and the things that happened there, I mean, he kind of got in the amusement business and really wasn't in the amusement business because, as you said, he had the lake that was there.

And then there were several cottages and a bandstand, and men's and women's bathhouse.

Yep.

And then, there was this shoot the chutes ride.

Now you talk about something scary, think about it.

In those days, they were just-- it was a log flume like you'd see some lumberjack use to drop trees down into the river to float away to go to the lumber yard.

And people would sit in these dugout canoes made with logs and just hold on, here we go.

And they'd drop them down the chute into the water.

And then they'd have to winch them.

There was a winch that winched them back to the top to do it again.

[laughs] And there's no-- there's no mention anywhere of injuries, or maiming, or anything like that.

But you know that it had to be some crazy stuff.

So I guess the cave that is there-- and obviously, it's still there.

But I guess it's spring fed.

Spring fed and it's quite extensive.

There's like three branches off of it.

And the folklore of it is that that cave extends all the way down to Downtown.

Really?

Yeah.

Now, that's never been proved, never been established in any way, shape, or form.

So what creek is feeding that, then?

Is that-- It would have been Jordan Creek.

Jordan Creek?

Yeah, but it's actually-- it's got to be spring fed because it's running the wrong way.

The Jordan runs South and West, so it's got to be going the other way.

So you got to think that between 1880 and 1907, that was the hot spot in Springfield, Greene County.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness, yeah.

--to hang out.

Yeah, just to go out there and recreate and do things.

I wonder what admission price they would have charged for something like that back in the day, or if it was free.

A lot of it was free, but I think the chute was like a dime, you know, which was put your life on the line for a dime.

That's a great slogan.

They could have marketed that.

Yeah, right.

And during the winter, of course, things-- as they do around here-- freeze up.

And being the entrepreneurs they were, how about some ice skating?

We've got a wonderful picture of all these people in turn of the 20th century dress-- the women with big hats with the feathers and the shirtwaist kind of big skirted coats and everything-- out there skating on the lake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was a place where fireworks started back in the day, when the 4th of July was a big, big deal.

And they got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

In the later years and as a kid, I remember going up there to watch the fireworks.

So, back in the '50s it was huge.

I mean, it was like New York City to us.

It was gigantic fireworks.

Yeah, and it was that way until, I guess, until Firefall started.

'82 was the last year they did the fireworks out there.

And the reason they said they stopped them, two.

One was because they were worried they would start a fire and burn down somebody's house.

But also, because it was polluting the lake because they shot the fireworks off a barge down there at the lake.

Yeah.

And so they moved them out to the airport and then they were at the airport for years.

--for a long time.

You know, I think I said this at the start of all this.

You really have eras that you're looking at when you look at Doling Park, starting with the Giboney's, obviously, as just dirt farmers out there.

And then Doling comes along and kind of has a little entrepreneurial spirit.

But then, about what 1907, I guess, Springfield Amusement Company buys this.

And the guys that head this up, Charles Brooks, William Jezzard, and Ben Meyer, I've never heard of them before.

Oh, yeah.

Brooks was one of the-- his family had Springfield Ice and Refrigeration.

And Jezzard was-- his family was the precursor to Fadler's and the big produce companies here in Springfield, Jezzard Fruit.

Because when you think of early Springfield, I mean, you think obviously, McDaniel, and you know, Woodruff and Herr, and all that bunch.

But when I read these names, I thought, those names don't ring any bells at all.

But they-- and they bought it for $50,000 in 1907.

So-- His investment did very well.

I want him for my investment-- Investment guy, right.

So when they took off, they had it from 1907 to 1929.

And kind of the Doling Park that a lot of people remember really started to formulate.

Exactly.

Talk about those years, 1907 to '29.

Yeah, they-- things became a lot more mechanical.

No log chutes?

Well, yeah, they still did the log chute but it was much-- it appeared safer.

But they had swimming tournaments, big competitions out there, things like that.

They were much better at promoting activities.

And so really, it was becoming a much more viable entity as far as a revenue generator.

And so, it was a pretty attractive purchase when it was sold again.

So, do you know if they created Springfield Amusement Company specifically for this?

Or did they have other ventures?

No, this was it.

Yeah, so they got together and they were all-- all three of these guys were in their 30's, and 40's.

They were just on the way up in family businesses.

Their fathers had started like Springfield Ice and Refrigeration, things like that.

Yeah, I mean, you talk about expanding, they had-- of course, the skating rink, the roller rink was there.

They had a boat rental, professional baseball field.

Yeah, they had a baseball park there.

And they also had a theater.

And they had a theater company that was on site.

So, live theater.

Live theater.

They had a theater company on site and then they would show movies from time to time, but the majority of their theater work was live theater.

And the Tolson Theater Company was on site, had some wonderful flyers that we've got copies of in the museum from that time, showing all the actors and actresses and little bios on them.

So this was kind of vaudeville era in that time frame.

So they would have been competing, then, with what houses downtown?

Would there have been other?

Oh my goodness, yeah.

Well, you had the Diemer on Commercial Street.

Downtown, you had the Fox, and the Landers, and all of those.

The Gem, there was a bunch of theaters.

There was like nine theaters downtown.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Had a penny arcade.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And then, 19 amusement park rides.

I mean, they had a roller coaster, tilt-a-whirl, funhouse, a merry-go-round.

The merry-go-round may have had a connection to the Henry Ford museum?

It's supposedly at the Henry Ford Museum now I think.

Wow.

That's a fairly major kind of a find.

Yeah, but like I said, more mechanical, more things that you'd get on and just ride.

Yeah.

But the Mad Mouse was the-- So it was a boom era?

I mean, that was like, that's what you did for entertainment in Springfield, I guess, Greene County, Early Springfield.

Go to Doling Park.

Yeah.

Were there other parks going at that-- White Park?

Well, White City was the only other one that had a lot of recreational.

All of the other parks-- Fassnight had a pool.

Grant Beach had a pool.

Um, Phelps Grove had no pool, but it had wonderful plants and a garden area.

They all had something, but it was very sedentary.

It was things that you would walk through and just kind of calming kind of deal.

But-- Charles Garden.

Yeah, exactly.

But White City Park, which was not a city park, but it was privately owned and operated till 1942, had a beer garden and all kinds of stuff like that.

But the only one in town that had the mechanical rides and all of that kind of stuff was Doling.

Yeah.

Was the cave an attraction at that point?

Or was it-- Not really, not really.

There was-- I've never been in that cave.

No.

No, it's closed off.

It's got a gate across the front of it.

Blocked off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so they did well.

You're thinking about it, that was on the North side, I guess, of town.

I wonder how people managed to get up there.

I mean-- Well, there was a trolley.

And that's why at the corner of Grant and Commercial, the underpass that goes under the railroad tracks there, there's a one lane track and then there's a two lane piece of that underpass.

And the one lane track is taller than the other two so that the streetcar wires could go through.

And that was for the streetcar.

And then the two lane side was for automobile traffic.

So that's one of the souvenirs from that line that ran off of Commercial Street and turned there at Grant, and then went North on Grant out to the park.

Yeah.

1929 is kind of a pivotal day.

So when you think about it, really, from about 1840-something to 1843 until about 1929, it was held privately.

All privately, right.

Which, that's a pretty long run.

Oh my goodness, yes.

And it made a lot of money during that period of time.

But then, in April 8, 1929, $85,000.

Once again, somebody is going, oh, I did well.

Well, and this is where it gets kind of dicey because the head of the Parks Department said it'll pay for itself.

We've looked at their books, and yada, yada.

$85,000 is just a drop in the bucket.

It'll be great.

And then, not so much.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So that's when the city officially took it over.

Right.

I wonder why-- I wonder why they did that.

Wonder why they did that.

During that time, the city parks department became a separate entity in 1913.

And they began immediately to gather up parks, like Phelps Grove was one of the first four, and gather up parks all just park type, like I said, kind of very beautiful but sedentary areas around the city, and start this parks program.

And so, this is 15 years later, 16 years later.

And this was something totally new to them.

They didn't have any experience with roller rinks and all the other things that went on, and all of the cost of all the people that it required to make this happen.

I mean, you couldn't just go out there and open the gate and go, well, there you go.

You had to make things oiled and greased and things working.

And put gas in the tank and all that.

And so it was a new world for them.

Yeah, because you think about 1929-- and this is just pre-depression era-- and while the economy wasn't a horrible at that point in time, it soon got pretty horrible.

Right.

But for the city to take that on, I mean, it makes you kind of want to go back and say, OK, and what was your thinking here?

I mean, was it a for revenue generation, or for just something good for the citizens, or both?

Both, I think.

And the way they discussed it in the articles from that time whenever the discussions about whether it would pay for itself came up, it truly was two separate kind of entities.

You had this pastoral lovely park in the cave.

And then you had all this sideshow midway kind of area up on top of the hill.

And then the skating rink was separate.

And there was a bandstand, and then the theater and all that.

There was just-- there was so many more moving parts in that park than any other park, that it took them a while to come to grips with it.

But once they did, it became a cornerstone of the North side of the city.

But also, a recreational space that people travel from all over the city to get to.

Yeah.

Did they pay cash for it or did they bond it out, I wonder?

They paid cash for it.

They paid cash for it?

$85,000, that's a lot of money.

That was a lot of money then.

And in '29, tragedy strikes.

The roller rink burns to the ground.

Right.

Yeah, and they rebuilt it.

Yeah.

One wall is all that's remaining of that building.

It was quite a space with the rock wall and everything on it.

Right, right.

And it developed some amazing nationally recognized roller skaters.

You know, dance partners that competed in roller skating events all over.

Yeah, yeah.

So, let's get to the '50s and '60s, and World War II, and into the '60s there.

I mean, it really almost started to increase in popularity during that period of time, I think.

I mean, there was a lot going on.

They had beauty contests and figure skating competitions.

Right, right.

It was quite a venue.

But that was spread out across the whole Parks Department.

They had a lot of events at Silver Springs for that community.

They had Fassnight.

Fassnight had the most beautiful pool with a big rock waterfall in one end of it that water rolled down into the pool off this stone wall.

And of course, softball was starting to take off.

So the softball leagues were going great guns and they were building softball parks in a lot of the parks around the city.

Yeah.

You know, I remember-- I was a Lawrence County kid back '50s and '60s, but we'd get up to Springfield.

And when we'd come to Springfield, we'd do one of two things.

We'd either go to the Ozark Empire Fair, or we'd go to Doling Park.

And I remember Doling Park, for me, my greatest memories of Doling Park were I loved the bumper cars.

Oh my gosh, yes.

First time I'd ever ridden a bumper car was at Doling Park.

Oh, yeah.

That was a hoot.

That was a hoot.

And they had the Funhouse, The Whip, the Giggling Gertie.

I mean, laughing Luke, and all of these great, great rides.

And just living on the edge because still, there was an awful lot of that log flume kind of attitude to them.

And the pool opened in '65.

A lot of people don't remember or think about maybe that they had a great pool there.

Yeah, nice pool.

And you know, as the runoff from everything got into the lake, the lake got pretty murky.

And so they needed something that was better water.

And so they put the pool in and that was a big help to them.

Yeah.

What are your greatest, fondest memories of Doling Park?

My greatest memories are going to the-- not even just riding them, but just experiencing the noise and the commotion of those rides.

And then, the fireworks.

My goodness, the fireworks were extraordinary.

They were something that you just couldn't-- at that time, there wasn't a lot of TV.

You didn't have the big 4th of July programs where they showed all the fireworks and stuff.

And to be there live and have those fireworks was just-- it was amazing, just amazing.

So, you know, it's been a resilient piece of property for the city park system.

And the other parks have kept up and ran well, obviously.

I mean-- And they've established the Northside Senior Center.

Exactly.

That's one of the best things they've done.

And it is absolutely a key to people our age on the North side.

Yeah.

They have wonderful programs there.

They have great rental space for meetings, and clubs, and things like that.

It's a great facility.

Well, they do a good job out there.

And you got to wonder what the future holds for all the park systems.

But we've been so lucky here in Springfield, Greene County.

We've got a great park system.

And it's vibrant and it's well managed, I think.

And it just-- it seems like it gets better.

And it's just good to know that old Doling Park is still hanging around after all these years.

And you know, what would your vision for Doling Park be going forward in the future, if you were the-- My goodness.

I just see it continuing the way it is.

I really do.

I don't know that there's a lot that you need to bend your mind around.

The one thing that strikes in my head though, is-- and it's not just to do with Doling-- but one man, Jimmy Ewing.

Yeah?

Yeah.

His running of the parks at a time from the '40s up to the '70s.

That 30 years of development and following up on that since that time was just-- it's an extraordinary testament to a park system that is nationally recognized.

As always, it's good to talk to you.

Good to see you.

Good to visit with you.

John Sellers has been my guest.

Thanks for being with me.

I appreciate that.

Anytime.

Appreciate that.

You stay tuned.

I'll be right back.

ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine", a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I want to thank my guest, John Sellers, for taking us on a journey back in time looking at the unique history of Doling Park.

And I hope you enjoyed our program and you'll join us again soon for another edition of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine".

[country fiddle music]