Reynolds Park

Reynolds Park opened on June 1, 1940, and was dedicated to the “entertainment, health, and happiness of the [white] people of Winston-Salem.”  It had an 18-hole golf course, a swimming pool, tennis courts, a gymnasium, a stadium, an amphitheater, and wooded areas for strolling and picnicking. It also featured a miniature train, a Ferris wheel, a roller-skating rink, and a carousel. It had massive fireworks on the Fourth of July. In the winter, locals would go to the park and ride sleds on the golf course. The park is still in operation.

Reynolds Park Pool

Reynolds Park is located on both sides of Reynolds Park Road in Winston-Salem, NC.

Reynolds Park location on Google Maps

Inspiration for the park started in the 1930s with a donation of 186 acres by Richard J. Reynolds Jr., Mary Reynolds Babcock, Nancy Reynolds Bagley, and William Neal Reynolds, and $70,000 from the Reynolds Tobacco family. Money from the Depression-era Works Progress Administration also helped finance the park, with a $450,000 price tag. The park ran independently until the late 1950s when the city took control. 

In its early years, the park began adding carnival attractions. In 1948, a second-hand Ferris wheel and merry-go-round were added to the park, both rides dated to the 1920s. By 1957, the park had a roller coaster that had a 300-foot track and reached a maximum height of 12 feet, a miniature train that went about a quarter of a mile and had a tunnel at one end, a sky-fighter kiddie ride, a shooting gallery, and other things. 

In 1961, attendance at Reynolds Park was nearly 160,000, including 75,000 trips on the rides, 10,000 visits to the roller-skating rink, and almost 30,000 swimmers at the pool. Then, in 1962, the park was integrated, and whites abandoned the park in droves.

In January 1962, some black Winston-Salem residents announced they planned to use the park’s skating rink, which Fred Charles operated under contract with the city. Charles wrote a letter to city administrators saying that the rink could not remain economically viable if it were integrated and predicted an increase in racial tension if that happened. A biracial committee worked behind the scenes and backed the integration of the rink. 

On April 11, 1962, seven black customers showed up at the skating rink to go skating. At their request, police officers were on hand. Charles came out, tacked a sign on the door saying the rink was closed. The rink never opened again.

City officials integrated the Reynolds Park pool that summer. On June 6, 1962, four college students became the first blacks to go swimming there. All the white swimmers immediately left the pool. The next day, the manager of the park grill got rid of all his outside tables and converted to window service only.

The city didn’t shut down the pool, but attendance collapsed. A city report found that from June 7 to June 26, 1962, only 1,500 people, 1,150 whites and 350 blacks, had used the swimming pool when usually almost 18,000 white people would have attended during the same period in previous years.

By the end of June, the grill closed down, and ridership was down on the carnival rides and other attractions.

A city report at the end of the season found that the number of rides taken had dropped 78 percent, and pool attendance had dropped 91 percent. Picnicking was down 58 percent, and overall attendance was down about 75 percent. The only bright spot was in the number of golfers, which actually rose slightly. But the golf course had already been desegregated several years earlier.

Pool attendance started rebounding the following year, but time was running out for the carnival rides. In February 1967, the city recreation commission decided not to open the rides and on May 24 an auctioneer sold all the rides. In the meantime, the city had found a new operator for the grill, but the skating rink never reopened. Today, the park and the pool are still entertaining the people of Winston-Salem and helping them stay healthy and happy.