Pool in Angels Camp to lock its gates for good

The Angels Camp pool will shut its gates forever at 4 p.m. Saturday, leaving Tryon Park without a neighboring pool for the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.

Continuing mechanical troubles have forced the closure of the pool, which in recent years has run its pumps and filters around the clock to maintain sanitary conditions.
  

“Right now we hop from day to day hoping that everything will work until Saturday,” said Tony Tyrrell, who has overseen the pool for the Angels Camp Veterans District since they took control of it 14 years ago.

Tyrrell, 66, credits the selfless work of long-time pool caretaker Don Fletcher with keeping the pool running as long as it has.
 

Fletcher, who is in his 80s, is older than the pool itself, which opened in very basic conditions in 1936.

“When they started, they dug a hole and put water in it and called it a pool,” Tyrrell said.

Calaveras swimmers should not have to wait long for a replacement.

Within eight months, ribbons will be cut on a $2.4 million Olympic-size swimming pool on the 18-acre sports complex behind Bret Harte High School, Tyrrell said.

The new pool will be twice as large as the old by volume, with 400,000 gallons, and measure 25 yards by 30 meters. It is built to accommodate “water polo, Olympic swimming — whatever game they play in the water we’ll be able to have it,” said Tyrrell.

The pool will join five tennis courts, two volleyball courts, two basketball courts, a softball practice field and a pair of Major League-level softball and baseball fields on the 18-acre property, along with a 270-space parking lot.

“That’ll be the last piece of the 18-acre puzzle,” said Tyrrell, who has worked closely on developing the complex. “Nothing like it in Northern California when we’re finished.”

The new site will continue to offer swimming lessons and, unlike the old location, remain open throughout the year, for use by Bret Harte High School during the week and by the public on weekends.

As for the future of the old pool, City Council members mused at a May meeting about building a skateboard park on the site.

“The city will get first choice and then we’ll go from there,” Tyrrell said.