Beat The Heat Old School Style

By Jack Coll

Thursday July 18, 2013

98 degrees with a heat factor of blah-blah-blah

With temperatures reaching into the upper 90’s over the past week one might harken back to childhood days when heat simply led us to area water holes.  I wasn’t part of the Swim Club crowd, you needed money for that and that was one of many things I didn’t have as a kid.  I belonged to the Schuylkill River Swim Club with locations in Bridgeport, by the dam, Bridgeport members swam on the Bridgeport side, while Norristown Schuylkill River Swim Club members swam and splashed on the Norristown side of the dam.  Once I started driving we would skip school (Upper Merion) and travel to the Port Indian chapter of the club in Trooper, and Abrams Run in Upper Merion, until the cops started waiting for us on a regular basis.  On special occasions we would travel to Oaks, and on real special occasions we would spend the day in Perkiomenville up in Green Lane.

The most refreshing watering hole I remember was the quarry on Jones Road in West Conshohocken, the water was always cold but on those hot summer days like today it was always refreshing.  Perhaps the best known watering hole in this area was Potts Quarry.  The younger generation might not recognize the name, I know I never swam there.  During the 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s, it was a great place to swim and hang out.  In the 1920’s a Boy Scout Troop built bath houses and a wading pool at the quarry location.  By the 1940’s, Sherry Lake Swim Club thrived at Potts Quarry until 1955, when the Township closed the swim club for health reasons.  With no swimming hole, local residents banded together and formed their own swim club known as Ply-Mar Swim Club and Tennis Club. Potts Quarry can still be seen today, surrounded by the Sherry Lake Apartments just off Cedar Grove Road.  The signs that were posted back in 1955 are still visible today, “NO SWIMMING”

How about Hitner’s Quarry, later known to local residents as Donovan’s Quarry. Donovan’s was located at Germantown Avenue and Joshua Road the current location of Miles Park.  In the late 1940’s and early 50’s Whitemarsh residents moving into newly built houses on Mathers Mill Road, Rebel Road, Edmonds Road and Quarry Lane were looking for a little summertime relief and settled into Donovan’s Quarry where picnic’s and children’s games were held along with swimming in the quarry to cool off.

Other area swimming holes come to mind on days like today, many adventurous Conshohocken youth traveled to Wissahicken to partake in dropping down to their skivvies and swim at Devil’s Pool.  Conshohocken youngsters have been known to travel down beyond Colwell Lane to Plymouth Creek and spend part of the day creating a dam, allowing the water to reach three to four feet in depth. And for the very few old timers who can reach back in their memory they just might tell you about a few good times spent at Gallagher’s Beach along the Schuylkill River down around Cherry Street.  If we were to reach out to a few good hearted West Conshohocken souls they might just tell us about swimming in the Schuylkill at the West Conshy Dam.  Swimming tales go on and on, for many years the canal, and parts of the canal served as private swimming areas for youngsters where many of them were known to skinny dip.

How about your childhood summertime swimming tales, on a day like today it just might get a little cooler to take a trip down memory lane and recall how refreshing that time in your life was.

To read more about area quarries including Potts and Donovan’s,  Coll’s Custom Framing authored a book “Tales of Conshohocken and Beyond”, complete with photographs of these locations.

Summer On!!

“I Summer In Conshy” Tee Shirts can be purchased by visiting the Conshystuff store at the top of this webpage.  Local pickup is available.