I learned to swim in Sunland Pool, in Washington Township. It was more of an organized pond then a real swimming pool. It closed when I was around seven years old. Slatington didn’t have its very own pool until I was eleven or twelve. Sure, we could swim in Trout Creek or any number of abandoned quarries. And we did. But the real alternative for cooling off on a hot summer day was to travel the three or four miles south to the village of Neffs.
Neffs had an ocean of a swimming pool, which at the time was called Stahley’s. I know it was privately owned so I assume by the Stahleys. I can still picture the people who ran the place. It was a huge pool with a rough uneven concrete bottom. It had two diving boards and a unique feature in the deep end. There was a wooden platform, which was called the raft. It was fun to climb up the ladder and jump off.
The pool had no fence around it. You didn’t pay admission to enter but you had to purchase a swimming tag that fastened to your swimsuit. It was a different color each day. Don’t get caught without your tag or with a tag of the wrong color! The place you bought the swim tag was the place you could rent innertubes and rafts. There was a refreshment stand off the one corner of the pool. They had amazing food. While you waited for your food, you could stand on a wooden bridge and watch the water spiders in the small stream that flowed by the pool. The area for towels and blankets was only on one side of the pool. Huge pine trees dotted the lawn.
You couldn’t walk from Slatington to the pool at Neffs. My mom never drove. So during the week I used to count on my aunt, Noreen Becker. She worked, in Slatedale, at Holiday Fashions and sometimes would be sent home early because of lack of work. She would take me and her son, my cousin Jim, to Stahley’s. Awesome times.
They modernized the pool at some point and got rid of the rough bottom. It was beautiful. But it started to gradually deteriorate and it was left abandoned about ten years ago. It now belongs to North Whitehall Township, which doesn’t have enough funds to fix it. Some recent pictures follow.
Another one of those places that you have fond memories of, that unfortunately stays in the past. I am sure you all can think of a similar place in you memory.
A Semi-retired Kind of Life 