Vintage Baseball Game

For more information, please call Dave Hovde at 296-9926 or email at hovde@dcwi.com

Before our Centennial Park was purchased by the proceeds from the Mulberry Centennial in 1958, there was an area for the school and community ball diamond. It was located at the end of North Glick Street. There was a track for track and field school activities too. "It was a hay field before they took it. I don't have any idea who owned it at the time. It was in behind the houses." Bill Layton said of this area. There was also a Civil Air Patrol shed on stilts with a cat walk around it. There was a schedule for volunteers to watch for foreign aircraft and to observe the Mulberry sky. Bill Layton explained to me, "Past the funeral home to the end where the curve is, there use to be a ball diamond. The school had a race track out there for track meets. There was one other thing that was in that area, I think at the same time, they had a booth up on stilts and they watched for airplanes, they had someone out there for a visual on airplanes. They had a little catwalk all the way around it.

Dave Weaver said, "In connection with World War II, The Watch Tower* started out being conducted in the second story above the butcher shop [Mulberry Liquor Store]. We were given pictures of German and Japanese planes to identify. We would sit in the window and watch the sky. I was a small kid at the time and really thought I was doing something important. Later, an actual tower was built at the end of North Glick Street, which was located behind our house." In conjunction with the air watch Dave says there were paper and tin can drives. He believes grease was turned in at the butcher shop but is not sure about that. In an article from The Journal & Courier, dated July 1952, "250 volunteers organized as 'Operation Skywatch' for the Civil Defense Ground Observer Corps. Locations will be in Cairo, Crane Station, Romney, West Point, Lafayette Loan and Trust Company building roof downtown."

There were many activities at the old ball diamond during The Mulberry Centennial: a shaving contest for all the Brother of the Brush, a balloon ascension and parachute drop demonstration by the pilot, and The Mulberry Centurial Pageant. Billy Layton participated in the Mulberry Centurial pageant behind the scenes. "We had a guy from West Point that had mules in there, they were a little cantankerous. We had one horse that got nervous in crowds. It was a buggy horse. So we had to have somebody in there who would watch real close that knew what they were doing to catch it. They were all good though. There were 15 or 20 horses in the Centurial. They would have no more than four or five out at a time." The Centurial was a big success. It had a cast of 250 citizens and ran for five nights.