Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 075-4 - October 2021 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 10 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2023-12-30 11:48:05 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:34 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:34

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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The Memory of Sacrifice and Spirit of Play Inspired Grass Valley’s Memorial Park November 11, 1921 Centennial By Gage McKinney Ever since the last Greek died at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, the spirit of sacrifice has proven the greatest weapon in war. Grass Valley citizens created Memorial Park 100 years ago to commemorate that spirit and the park shows how shared memories can animate a community. The impetus to create the park was the community’s need to acknowledge those who served in World War I, both returning veterans and the ones who didn’t return, and to relieve grief by giving it a public expression. But other impulses also prompted the park, and the earliest ones were commercial. The Auto Camping Fad The fad called auto camping swept America in the years following the war, inspired by pre-war auto campers like Henry Ford and President Harding. The automobile made remote places accessible and presented rural communities with opportunities. By creating auto camps, parking areas with simple shelters, firepits and showers, rustic towns from Maine to California boosted tourism. Nevada City boosters hailed an auto camp established in 1920 on Coyote Street. The nearby success put pressure on Grass Valley to develop its own autocamp. Needing to stay abreast, Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce secretary James C. “Jim” Tyrrell scanned his town for a likely site.! Autocamps, of course, weren’t the only trend. Two years after the Armistice of November 1918 had ended hostilities in Europe, cities and towns across America were planning war memorials, and almost universally rejecting the ideas of statues or monuments. Americans wanted their memorials to serve the living as they remembered the dead. The ) he Ace James C. “Jim” Tyrrell. Courtesy Grass Valley Elks Lodge 538. ‘Nevada County Historical society Bulletin eee 75 NUMBER 4 OCTOBER 202 i, Opera House and Herbst Theater. These efforts were afoot as Tyrrell considered a seven-acre abandoned pear orchard between Race Street and Colfax Avenue.’ Jim Tyrrell’s Plan This property, known as the Barker Track, caught Tyrrell’s attention because he remembered William Bourn, president of the Empire gold mine, had offered it a decade earlier to the Women’s Improvement Club. The women wanted to create Grass Valley’s first public park but realized they didn’t have the resources to develop one as large as the Barker Tract. The women instead developed City Square park on a half-acre wedge of ground at Bennett and Bank streets.’ With this history in mind, Tyrrell set his sights on the Barker Tract and he knew who to approach — the Empire mine’s managing director George W. Starr. Tyrrell knew Starr well. He had grown up as a neighbor to Starr’s wife, the former Libby Crocker, and he regularly joined with Starr in convivial gatherings at the Elks Lodge. Tyrrell had opportunity to pitch the autocamp and park to Starr and Starr in turn to William Bourn. Bourn and the Empire board of directors embraced the idea. The Morning Union announced a fully conceived plan on January 23, 1921 under a page one banner headline: “Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce Announces Plan for Memorial Play Center.” The article described features of the future park: a bronze tablet naming fallen soldiers from the district; a playground; trees and gardens; an autocamp; a public pool; baseball diamond; and bridges over the creek. Already, the paper announced, the Chamber had secured the property, had it surveyed and engaged a San Fransmallest towns and hamlets planted trees or dedicated groves, and humble Downieville in Sierra County surpassed larger towns by erecting a veterans’ hall. Regional cities like Oakland developed a park and a world-class city like San Francisco envisioned an art complex which eventually would include the War Memorial cisco architect to draw preliminary plans. The Empire and other mines had already pledged financial and material support. “The project will be dedicated to and will serve as a lasting memorial to the former soldiers and sailors from this part of the county,” the paper said.