Westside Park is located in

Chehalis, Washington Chehalis ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 7,439 at the time of the 2020 census. The city is located in the Chehalis valley and is split by Interstate 5 (I-5) and State Route 6 ...

in the city's Pennsylvania Avenue-West Side Historic District which was catalogued on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

(NRHP) in 1991. The park contains basketball courts, a playground, and picnic areas. It is known locally for its blossoming cherry trees, first planted in 1932, and towering

conifers Conifers () are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All e ...

History

The park began in 1894 and the area became a playground and recreation area for the

West Side School The West Side School is a school building constructed in Worland, Wyoming, United States, in 1936. The school was built by the Works Progress Administration to for the education of Mexican students in the region. The school remained segregated f ...

. An initial motion to beautify the park and keep the area kept as a playground for the school were begun in 1905, and upgrades were begun in 1906; preparations to regrade the grounds took place in 1908. Due to extensive damages to the school during the

1949 Olympia earthquake The 1949 Olympia earthquake occurred on April 13 at with a moment magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The shock was located in the area between Olympia and Tacoma, and was felt throughout the state, as we ...

, the building was razed and the park became public. A memorial bench in the park was dedicated in 2007 to Gavin Crandell, a sixteen year-old who died the prior year after being struck by a train at a crossing away. Westside Park was a popular gathering spot for the teenager. In 2021, a volunteer neighborhood group, the Friends of Westside Park, organized as a non-profit

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

and began to oversee improvements to the park. That same year, the group, in collaboration with the Chehalis Foundation, were able to receive a $20,000 earmark for the park from the Chehalis City Council as a beginning funding effort for future renovations. An additional $95,000 in capital was added in 2023. Considered the first of potentially three phases of renovations, the $115,000 total funding is to aid in the purchase of new playground equipment, the construction of a perimeter fence, and to upgrade the sidewalks and parking areas to be in compliance with the

Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...

(ADA). The welcome sign to the neighborhood, located in a traffic calming roundabout directly east of the park at the intersection of West and Pennsylvania, was destroyed in a hit-and-run incident in December 2023. Westside Park is unable to qualify for listing with the

(NRHP) due to a loss of records during a 1910 fire at the defunct West Side School.

Notes

References

{{Chehalis, Washington, state=collapsed Parks in Chehalis, Washington Parks in Lewis County, Washington Parks in Washington (state) National Register of Historic Places in Lewis County, Washington

History

Notes

See also

References