Editor’s note: Over a period of 12 years beginning in 1983, local historian Ken Munford wrote 561 columns for the Gazette-Times. As part of the city’s 150th anniversary, the newspaper will publish a selection of these columns each Saturday. This one was originally printed Dec. 12, 1988.

The stretch of the Marys River that flows between Pioneer Park and Avery Park at one time was a popular aquatic playground.

The Corvallis Lumber Manufacturing Co. had a large sawmill on the north bank. It ran from South Third Street to the Willamette River. A dam on the Marys provided a pond to store logs until they were needed. It backed up water for nearly a mile and provided a placid lake through much of the year.

A boathouse on the north bank provided rental canoes. Moonlight excursions were popular. A student from the 1920s told me she and her beau took along a Victrola to play music while cruising on balmy summer evenings. Other paddlers joined them to make a small flotilla.

For the annual canoe fete in the spring, anyone could enter a float. Fraternities and sororities, jointly or alone, decorated boats, canoes and rafts to compete for prizes.

Whenever Oregon Agricultural College beat the University of Oregon in football, the Rev. J.R.N. Bell, local minster and avid sports fan, kept his promise to throw his hat in the river. A large crowd came to the City Park at the foot of the highway bridge to witness the ritual.

There were two swimming holes. One was at the rapids at the head of the lake, where water poured over a small dam. The other, at the west end of what is now Avery Park, had a shallow bank suitable for learners.

Here in the 1930s the PTA-sponsored summer recreation program provided a lifeguard and instruction a few hours a day in June and July. The American Legion urged the City Council to add lifeguards for a longer period of time.

For years accidents and drownings had caused concern. As a result, the college began requiring all students to take swimming lessons and be able to swim before graduation. Later, a city regulation required all canoes to come out of the water by dark, eliminating the romantic moonlight rides.

Dr. G.V. Copson of the college bacteriology department tested the water many times and warned of increasing pollution from upstream and from the logs stored downstream. In 1945, Public Health Officer R.W. Ripley declared the water unsafe for swimming and posted notices to that effect.

A struggle went on with the Corvallis Lumber Manufacturing Co. about logs stored as far upstream as the 15th Street Bridge. Few traces of it remain today along the bicycle paths that meander through the dense growth of blackberry bushes. Even archeologists have a hard time finding artifacts.

The dam was removed, putting an end to the placid lake so great for canoeing.

Meanwhile groups and individuals carried on a campaign to build a city pool. Some thought it should be in Avery Park, but that idea did not stick. The pool at the Osborn Aquatic Center for year-round use is the result of that campaign.

Some time ago the college dropped its requirement that a graduate had to know how to swim.

Only occasionally do dippers plunge into Marys River any more. Canoeists still try their skill once in a while in the swift current.