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Show i - ' ' T - v x - " ' ' ' i 1 r 1 . 'a"f!" 11 N J LOOK OVER GROUND Mayor Burton H. Adams, Ad-ams, Harvey Smith and Karl Banks look over the site of the proposed community recreation area. Plans will be made soon for malting- tlus city-owned ground an ideal spot for picnicing and use for recreation by the citizens of P.G. Property Owned ly P. ,6. City Is Ideal Area Fr Development Of intensive lecreation Facilities by Karl Banks Some years ago, and it hasn't been too many, most of the people in America made their living working work-ing in activities that kept them out of doors for 10 to 12 hours, each day. As a result workers and their families were content to spend their leisure time, what little there was of it, at home in the house or under the shade of their own trees. The automobile and the numerous numer-ous changes in our way of life have had their effect. People work fewer hours of the day, fewer days of the week and fewer weeks of the year. Paid vacations of two, three or even four weeks duration are currently common. Leisure time has increased accordingly. In addition, the majority of the people earn their living in factories, factor-ies, offices, industrial plants and institutions. As a result, when the) have time on their hands, they are eager to hop into the familj car and enjoy the great out of doors. The tendency is not only Vide-spread but increasing by leaps and bounds. As evidence of people's desire to be up and away, Tom - Walker, superintendent of Timpanogos Cave National Monument said on Tuesday that a few years ago 90 per cent of the visitors to American Ameri-can Fork Canyon stopped at the Cave Camp picnic area. Now only 10 per cent of them can be accomodated accom-odated in the space available at the camp side. Information reported by Kent Able, assistant to Forest Ranger Jerry Hill was to the effect that during the week of July 4th, 16,000 automobiles passed through the counting stations in American ' Fork Canyon. "And most of these ' were on July 4, 5, and 6," he added. ' Estimating 4 people to the car, ' Otis means that 64,000 people were in this one recreation area during i the week; and other recreation spots nationwide roxrl similar congestion. That's right, we are running out i of outdoor recreation space. Our National Park Service was designed design-ed to handle 25 million visitors a year. Last year 59 million crowded crowd-ed the facilities far beyond capacity, capac-ity, as compared with six million visitors in 1926. Endorsed by numerous organizations organiza-tions and sponsored by California, Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, Washingti'U and Utah, a bill is before be-fore Conguss asking that a commission com-mission be appointed to make an inventory of land and writer areaH available lor public recreation purposes. pur-poses. Sensing the current trend, a number of public spirited Pleasant Grove citizens are actively concerned con-cerned regarding the possibility of providing a city recreation area at "Waid Spring:)" norlheasl of the city. The 30-acre tract of land was purchased during' 'the administration administra-tion of Mayor Hai-vcy E. Smith, primarily to acquire the springs as an addition to the Pleasant Grove culinary water supply. A visit to the area reveals that the site is a "natural" for the establishment es-tablishment of a city-owned recreation rec-reation park. With a little money spent on exploratory work, experts agree that the capacity of the springs could be increased enough to care for the needs of the park. The area now boasts a heavy growth of native trees and shrubbery shrub-bery and numerous Khade trees have been planted by previous owners. own-ers. For the establishment of a recreation park in a native si'ttin;;, the site was made to order. The first thing that stnick thiH writer, on a visit to the area last Saturday, was the possibility of constructing an outdoor ampithea-ter. ampithea-ter. The contours of the ground are perfect for tai.s purpose. Vision if you will a pageant at the conclusion of our summer recreation rec-reation program being held in the future in such a place and such a Milting. The view of the valley from the seats of the ampht heat er would be breathtaking. "Rome was not built in a day" and such a project of community benefit could not be planned find consuma-ted over night; but tin: P'lssibiliti'-s are unlimited. After landscaping experts have drawn the overall plans, the work could proceed unit by unit. Why not return to the old Pioneer cus torn of donated volunteer labor by individuals, church and civic groups ? The need for such a recreation park exists today and will become more acute as time passes and the people who live here become more numerous. It would be heart -wanning indeed in-deed to see the physical, moral and financial forces of this community unite on such a worthy project of universal benefit. Why not begin now? |