Penny Playground is located at 221 SW 13th Street in Chehalis.
Today marks 39 years since our own Mount St. Helens blew its top, but that’s not the only anniversary. This weekend the good folks of Chehalis will celebrate a quarter century of Penny Playground by opening a time capsule first buried back during the park’s dedication a quarter century ago.
While the eruption of Mount St. Helens certainly was a more important global event, I’d wager that many kids in Chehalis have equally monumental memories of hours spent in the wooden labyrinth of the play structure at Recreation Park.
The playground was completed, with lots of volunteer help and support, in 1993. It was formally dedicated a year later, with a time capsule buried on May 1, 1994.
Now that time capsule is being unearthed. The public is invited to see it opened at noon on Sunday. The first 200 attendees will be treated to free ice cream, courtesy of Umpqua Bank, and free face painting is available for children.
In announcing the opening, the city of Chehalis quoted from the late Connie Small, who was the energetic program manager that brought Penny Playground to life in 1993 (and later led the successful effort to rehabilitate the now-gorgeous Alexander-Lintott Park.)
“Friendships were formed and strengthened,” Small said when the playground was completed in 1993, “and through the years, Penny Playground will be remembered as the time the whole community came together for one goal — to make our children’s dreams come true. We all feel a tug at our hearts and a sense of pride at what was accomplished one week in April of 1993.”
This 25th anniversary of the playground’s dedication comes as a new effort is underway to rebuild the play area for the next generation.
The new playground is being designed to have some of the same elements that we and our kids love about our current structure: slides, tall towers and lots of places to climb. There will also be new things to appreciate: zip lines, wheelchair-accessible toys, a unique elevated hillside, and better fencing for safety.
As much as we all love the wooden structure that many of us helped to build, the wood is sadly nearing the end of its lifespan. My own kids, racing up and down the structure, have the slivers to prove it.
I’ll be honest — while I know that we need a new structure, I’ll be sad to see this one go. Fortunately, the plans for its replacement include saving the distinctive wooden towers to serve as the entrance to the new structure.
And more important than that weathered wood is that the replacement project also depends on community volunteers. The fundraising drive (including pennies, as well as folding bills) is already underway. Learn more at www.chehalisfoundation.org/pennyplayground
I hope that organizers, as the plans are finalized and construction approaches, will find a way to have a “we can build it” event. That remains one of the most beloved legacies of when Penny Playground was built — that two thousand of us came out and worked together in the modern equivalent of an old-fashioned “barn-raising.”
Chehalis needs to have that again — as we say goodbye to a place we love, we can take pride and build up new affection for its replacement if and when we can all work alongside one another, with our hands, to make it real.
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Brian Mittge and his children have spent many happy hours at Penny Playground. Drop him a line about your memories there at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
