Clyde White City

  

An ad for the short-lived trolley park in Dearing, Kansas

It must have seemed almost like a dream. It was there…and then gone so fast, vanished. A glittering amusement park in Dearing, Kansas, with a thousand incandescent lights, a roller coaster with seven cars lit by 300 lights, a merry-go-round with 150 lights, the penny arcade, a bowling alley, a dance pavilion, billiards room, a pool hall, and band shell. There was the German Village where one could go for refreshments, and the moving picture show. You never knew what you might see, but the ads promised “Something doing all the time.” 

     You might be able to watch glass blowers, Professor Montz Bozarth making a balloon ascension; Captain Calvert making a high dive; or have your fortune read for free. One might encounter the thin man, “who answers all questions.” Or maybe you’d be there when Professor LePondo, the hypnotist, was buried alive, six feet under. Then there was the “Slide for Life” - watching a pretty woman cross a lagoon by sliding on a wire, which sounds a lot like ziplining.  

     There was the free exhibit of an electric doll - which supposedly cost $5,000 -  and the snake exhibit and miniature zoo with real, live alligators. The interurban ran from Coffeyville to the park every thirty minutes on weekends in season.

     Clyde White City was a trolley park, something forgotten in American society today. Before the Great Depression, there were more than 1,000 such parks built at the end of the trolley line. Many of them were built by the rail companies themselves to generate weekend traffic, when ridership dropped. By the early 1900s, nearly every city of any size had a trolley park - some just a picnic and swimming area with a band shell, but increasingly, with the rides and amenities Clyde White City offered, and more. The Dearing location probably seemed a natural as it was between Coffeyville and Independence and could draw from both populations. The promoters secured a ten-year lease on the land. 

     The trolley parks were designed to be family-friendly, for the church-going crowd, and they were affordable. Admission was free or minimal – Clyde White City charged ten cents (about $3.16 in 2023 value). Unlike today’s big venues, customers were invited to bring their “well-filled” picnic baskets, and many offered free ice water. Ice was not taken for granted then. The Dearing park promised its customers plenty of shade trees to sit under.

     Dozens of the parks had the name “White City.” This was inspired by the White City and Midway of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, when thousands were dazzled by the white stucco buildings lit by tiny, glittering electric lights, a magical sight to people with kerosene lamps at home. Clyde White City opened unfinished for the Fourth of July 1907. The Coffeyville newspaper reported 7,000 in attendance with an admission price of ten cents. A fireworks show – reportedly $500 worth, when the city of Coffeyville did nothing - was held and baseball games were played.

     Clyde White City was a natural gathering place for groups like the Knights of Columbus and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, who were invited by management to have a special day at the park as a group. It was also common for companies to host their company picnics at trolley parks. The park made a lot of money on the special day for the Anti Horse Thief Association. 

    Just as Clyde White City was rushed into existence, Dearing had “boomed” from a sleepy rural village, a stopping point on the railroad. A 1908 article described the town:

  The townsite is on a gently sloping wooded hill on the north side of Onion creek. A fine natural growth of trees makes it a pleasant place to live.

  The growth of Dearing has been remarkable. Eighteen months ago the population was less than 100. Now it is over 1,000 and growing all the time.

      The astonishing growth was due to the construction of the  American Zinc, Lead and Smelting Company in 1906. In the paternalistic practices common at the time, the company bought 480 acres of land, platted it as Lanyon’s Addition, and built houses, or sold lots, for their employees.  Dearing had a bank, several stores, a hotel and boarding houses. They had their own weekly newspaper, the Dearing News. There were two churches and a two-story brick school was completed in 1907, accommodating 300 students. Natural gas had been discovered, which supplied the smelter and homes. It was believed to be limitless. What could go wrong?

     This was where my great-grandmother Melissa Patchett grew up, only she moved to Indian Territory before the “boom” that transformed Dearing. 

     It all vanished as fast as it appeared. The dazzling lights of Clyde White City darkened; the park closed in 1909. A newspaper article said at first, the novelty of the trolley car ride and the park drew people in. Toward the close of the first season people were beginning to complain that car fare plus admission was too expensive for what there was to do. (Bear in mind that the smelter paid 12 to 20 cents per hour.) Attendance kept slipping except on special days when there were free exhibitions like the high dive.

     Creditors began pressing the company, then they moved into the courts. A receiver was appointed to manage the park for its second season to see if he could make any money. Opening day 1908, all was ready…and it poured all day. The rain continued nearly every day for a month. When nice weather finally arrived, the Coffeyville Weekly Journal reported, the Natatorium was up and running in Coffeyville, in addition to other amusements. One could see moving picture shows at the Odeon, the Theatorium or the Jefferson Theater for a nickel. Then there was Tackett’s Airdome, where, in the week of 6 June 1908 alone, one could choose to attend a minstrel show with twenty chorus girls, a comedy drama, or a performance by Grace Wolf, an award-winning “buck and wing” dancer.  

     People spent their money elsewhere. Even the Anti Horse Thief Association Day, which management was counting on, was a bust.

     The park and all its contents were sold at a sheriff’s sale, with a Coffeyville man buying the park for a mere $800. It’s interesting to see the list of items sold off, some of which were 33 ice cream tables, 135 chairs, three settees, a steel-spring couch, gasoline lamps, 200 feet of “coaster chain,” six squirrels, a groundhog, five alligators, four raccoons, three wolves and a chipmunk. 

     By September, its buildings were torn down with the lumber taken to Coffeyville for reuse. Clyde White City failed faster than other trolley parks, but most closed after World War I. The car is usually blamed for their demise.  

     The Dearing smelter plant, which employed 400 men, closed in the fall of 1913. The Dearing school population, first through eighth grades, dropped precipitously. Parts of the smelter opened again for a few brief periods in the next few years, but the company sold off the employee homes in “Smelter town.”

     The smelter site is now an Environmental Protection Agency hazardous waste Superfund site.

 

  Sources:

     Brooke, Bob. “Trolley Parks Fade Into Memory,” The Antiques Almanac, http://theantiquesalmanac.com/trolleyparksfadeintomemory.htm  

    Junge, Aspen and Rick Bean. “A Short History of the Zinc Smelting Industry in Kansas,” Kansas Department of Health and Environment. 28 Dec 2006, https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/6569/A-Short-History-of-the-Zinc-Smelting-Industry-in-Kansas-PDF

     “The White City - Great Park at Dearing To Be a Matter of Reality,” Independence Daily Reporter, 17 April 1907, p. 1.

“Park Company Pushing Work,” Coffeyville Daily Record, 16 May 1907, p. 1. 

     “A Mass of Light - Clyde White City Will Be Bewilderingly Beautiful,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 26 June 1907, p. 5. 

     “A Very Quiet Fourth - Deering Had the Largest Crowd of the Day,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 5 July 1907, p. 1. 

     “A.O.U.W. Picnic,” The Evening Star (Independence, Kansas), 14 Sept. 1907, p. 8. 

     “Dearing Park To Be Open - Clyde White City Soon To Start For the Season,” Dearing News, 27 March 1908, p. 1. 

     “Clyde White City Was Sold Under the Hammer For a Song Today,” Evening Star, 3 Oct 1908, p. 1.

     “Passing of the Park,” The Dearing Sentinel, 3 Sept 1909, p. 1. 

     “Sheriff’s Sale,” Independence Daily Reporter, 20 Oct 1908, p. 7.

Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023