The Wayne Natatorium
Pennsylvania
In eighteen ninety-five, a remarkable swimming facility opened in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of what is now Cowan Park. The Wayne Natatorium was an outdoor in-ground pool fed by natural springs, and it measured five hundred feet long by one hundred feet wide. That made it among the largest open-air swimming pools in the United States at the time of its opening.
The pool hosted National Swimming Association championships in the late eighteen hundreds, drawing competitive swimmers from across the region. In an era when women were routinely barred from athletic competition, the Wayne Natatorium was open to female swimmers, though they could not participate in the championship events.
The pool's life was short. Droughts lowered the spring-fed water table, and changing recreational habits drew crowds elsewhere. By nineteen oh three, just eight years after opening, the natatorium had closed. The springs and the pool are gone, but the location in Cowan Park preserves the memory of what was briefly one of the country's grandest public swimming venues.
