Looking North West. Walter Debs Caywood in the boat used on the Old John R. and Emma Daly Caywood Pond in North West Grant Co, OK. Note: the tent in the back ground is where the swimmers rented bathing suits and changed their clothes. The Caywood’s could not legally charge people for swimming, but they could charge 25 cents for swim wear. There were tents on both sides; one for women and one for men. There were two diving boards, one a high dive and the other a low dive which is shown here. The step to the left front of the tent was a walk way for swimmers to enter the water. The diving board was for those who entered the pool by diving into the water as well as entertainment diving. A boat dock was to the back of the boat to the north east side of the pond. The mouth of the main spring was to the upper far left of this picture. There was a small rocky hill that Grandpa Caywood inserted into the rocks that was just higher than where the spring water ran into the pond. The clear spring water pooled in a sandy base and streamed toward the east toward a dam where the water was nine to ten feet deep. The dam was made with an overflow pipe that drained the excess water to another smaller and lower pond. Uncle Charley planted many shade trees around this pond and as I grew up it there were good sized trees all around it. A roadway for traffic came from the East and passed close to Grandpa and Grandma’s house and up a hill behind the north side of the pond toward a side road leading south toward Highway #11. Grandpa Caywood put in fuel tanks southeast of his house to serve customers traveling this route. During the summer, they also sold garden produce.
We three siblings spent many hours swimming fishing and playing in this pond in the 30 and 40's. The same pond that our daddy and his siblings enjoyed in the 1920's.
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