By TAMMIE TOLER
Princeton Times
July 10, 2009 10:48 am
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PRINCETON — In 1963, a group of 26 determined women turned a traffic island of rubbish and rocks into a point of pride with Princeton’s Centennial Fountain.
This week, their once-forlorn landmark was reborn, ensuring there’s once more a friendly fountain welcoming citizens and visitors alike to Princeton.
City government and business leaders gathered in a happy, Wednesday afternoon occasion to officially rededicate the Centennial Fountain at the intersection of Athens and Oakvale Roads. The 46-year-old fountain, long dry and dormant, was once again sparkling under summer’s sunny skies, as Mayor Dewey Russell, City Council members and a grateful group of onlookers saluted the community spirit it took to build the fountain and to get it running again.
“This is a memorable occasion,” Russell proclaimed, beginning the festivities honoring the fountain dedicated during West Virginia’s centennial year and rededicated to mark the 100 years Princeton has been an incorporated city.
The visitors on hand were bubbling with excitement nearly as much as the fountain’s 3,700 gallons of water.
“I’m just so glad to see it back on,” Mercer County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Marie Blackwell said. “It makes a friendly atmosphere.”
Princeton-Mercer County Chamber of Commerce’s Board Chairwoman Linda Cox couldn’t have agreed more.
“I’ve wanted this fountain flowing for years,” she said, all smiles. “Princeton is having progress if we’ve got some beautification efforts like this going on, right?”
While the fountain, constructed of native stone, precast concrete and river gravel, has long been a Princeton landmark, water hadn’t filled its pool for a long time, the victim of pranks that often left more corrosive suds than water inside its pipes. Each time a jokester put soap inside the fountain, city crews were forced to spend hours and money to remove the soapy stuff that damaged the infrastructure. Eventually, the work simply became too much, and the fountain ran dry and silent.
In 2007, a group of high school students petitioned the city to reconsider. Every spring, Princeton City Council invites Princeton Senior High School Student Government Association members to take part in Student Government Day. The student-selected representatives spend the day trying their hands at running Princeton, and they often get to choose their own agenda.
“The rebirth of this fountain came from one of those meetings, one of those days,” Russell said.
That year, the students, under the guidance of PSHS teachers and the leadership of Mayor-for-a-Day Lucas Woods, were unanimous. They all wanted the fountain flowing once again, suggesting the city turn it back on one summer on a trial basis.
The movement to bring the fountain back picked up momentum when Princeton Public Library Director Connie Shumate located a Princeton Garden Club scrapbook in some of the library archives. The scrapbook traced the fountain’s birth, from the time when all the local garden clubs united to landscape the Athens-Oakvale Road traffic island, then the largest in the state, to July 8, 1963, when the fountain was officially dedicated as Princeton’s Centennial Fountain.
It was the brainchild and project of Princeton Garden Council’s 26 members, headed during much of the planning process by Mrs. William McClaugherty. To help the club, L. Clyde Caldwell, “a local contractor and public-spirited citizen,” according to the Garden Club scrapbook, volunteered to design the landmark as a cascading, three-tiered fountain.
Once Caldwell’s design was “enthusiastically approved” by the club, the construction work began, with several local businesses and individuals joining the effort. Building the fountain took the cooperation of the West Virginia Department of Highways, which owned the property at the intersection, the City of Princeton, which agreed to maintain the island and fountain once it was constructed, and the ladies of the Garden Club, who raised the money with bake sales, holiday nut drives and much more.
One of their more memorable efforts involved the creation and sale of Centennial Dolls, a campaign a then-Princeton Times columnist Kate Simpkins called “one of the most ingenious and most rewarding drives around.”
Although all the ladies were involved, Simpkins declared, “Mrs. Luther Hale, who must be an artist with needle and design, has given them (the dolls) the look of fragile figurines. Every detail of their clothing is stitched and styled to perfection. We have heard they are elegant looking in a secretary or break-front, and they also make delightful gifts and souvenirs.”
The Garden Council paid for much of the fountain by selling each of these Centennial Dolls for $5 each.
But, when it came time to actually construct the landmark they’d come to love before it existed, the Garden Club was still $1,000 short on the initial money outlay. That’s where Princeton Bank & Trust came to the rescue, offering the club an interest-free loan to make sure the fountain work could begin on schedule.
Once the tiers were in place, organizers knew they needed a way to light the fountain at night.
Wednesday, Ott Fredeking recalled the man who engineered the electrical work and made the fountain glow.
“Randolph Pendleton, he was an electrical genius. He put the lights down inside the water and made them shine up. It was really beautiful,” Fredeking said.
Russell explained the original 1963 dedication ceremony even took place at night, so that visitors could admire the colorful lights that illuminated the fountain that had brought so many people from the city and state together.
The fountain, and the kind collaboration that created it, drew attention from the Charleston Gazette, where a headline declared, “26 women in Princeton replace rubbish and rocks with tiered water fountain.”
And, the Princeton fountain even gained a spot on the CBS Evening News featuring Walter Cronkite in 1963. The year of the fountain’s dedication was one of the driest in history, forcing tankers to run loads of water every half hour from Bluefield to Princeton, to supply the approximately 14,000 citizens who lived here, and refill the new fountain.
“They did this, and nobody complained, because they were helping each other and their community,” Shumate recently exclaimed, clearly comparing the difference in public perception between the two eras.
As she planned a year’s worth of activity to celebrate Princeton’s 100 years, Shumate said she dreamed of seeing the fountain flowing and lit again.
It took a lot of work, as Princeton Public Works Director Kenny Rose can attest. The power pole and supply had to be replaced, and a new pump was necessary to make the fountain functional. Plus, it took Princeton Fire Department four trips to refill the fountain.
Then, when Rose and his crews turned the fountain on, they discovered it was leaning, causing most of the water to run off of one side, but after they stabilized the structure, it stood straight and proud Wednesday.
This week, there were new lights in place. Though the configuration isn’t exactly as Pendleton created and the luminaries are just clear for now, workers pledged the fountain will still glow after dark, and up to about 11 p.m., when the weather is good.
Perhaps an editorial in the July 10, 1963 Sunset News-Observer stated the accomplishments then and now the best:
“Nothing creates a better impression for a community than a pleasing entrance. The traveler just passing through, or the person who drives the same route day after day, gets a ‘lift’ when the surroundings are beautiful.
“Princeton now has one of the nicest approaches any community could possibly have with the attractively landscaped island and fountain...”
— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.
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