LADYBUG SLIDE: I have recently moved back to Colorado Springs. My family moved here in 1966, and we lived at Boulder Street and Wahsatch Avenue. I enjoyed the small park at Boulder Crescent Park at Boulder and Cascade. I remember playing on a large bright orange “ladybug” round slide in the park. People today have questioned my memory because all that is left is the concert pad at the park. Can you help me out with the history and the demise of the ladybug from the park?
- Wes Soule
ANSWER: We asked readers if they remembered the ladybug and they certainly did, my goodness they did. Families had their own special names for the playground apparatus and fond memories of time spent in the park.
“Mr. Soule’s memory is doing just fine,” said reader N. Fischer. Fischer’s family called it "The Pumpkin Slide. My 50-something kids still ask about it when we drive by.”
John Roe sent his mother Kay’s recollections of what they, too, called "The Pumpkin."
and said "It was made of fiberglass, and the City had some trouble keeping the slide in repair and smooth. Perhaps that was one reason for its removal? Though we do remember that the downtown area was deteriorating, and the City often found drunks and their bottles in the area (a poor thing in a play area). "
Colorado Springs native Marjorie Swearingen said she remembers “the orange slide (also red and green) was in the triangle at Platte, Cascade and Boulder Crescent.
“My children and I called it The Mushroom Slide. We spent countless hours crawling through the holes in the side, pretending the inside was the fort and we were defending ourselves against invaders. We have funny photos of the kids sticking their heads through the holes."
Pamela Bayer’s grandfather used to take her to the climbing structure in the 1960s. "It looked like half an egg. We called it the 'Egg Park' because Grandpa said it was a buried dinosaur egg, and the baby dinosaur made the holes when it hatched!”
Laurie Struck, a Colorado Springs native, said Soule’s question about the ladybug slide brought back wonderful memories. "I remember my parents taking my brothers and me there on purpose so we could play on that giant, colorful bug! Even today, all these years later, I look over at the park when driving by and still expect to see it there. . . . In my memory it still is!”
Virginia Clark responded: “In the 1960s our children enjoyed a trip to 'The Little Cheese House' at Boulder Crescent. They thought it looked like a round, red wax-wrapped Gouda cheese! We followed play time on the slide with ice cream at Borden’s Creamery nearby.”
The ladybug slide makes Nanette Heflin think about the family dentist. When her sister Lisa was about 12, “she put her head out of one of the view holes, at the same time a boy decided to slide down the wrong side of the structure, and he landed on her and broke her two front teeth off on the rim. Our family dentist got to see a lot of her for a while.”
Betty Griffin said the slide was “officially named 'Imagine' and the kids surely did,” including her oldest daughter who renamed it "Imogene."
J. Michael Riley recalled it was "Orgledorf" then "Noitanigami" which is “imagination” spelled backward which his nephew "lettered on the tailgate of his hot pickup truck!”
"I remember when my six sisters and myself were always taken there by my grandparents to play at the park only we called the big orange thing the " Imagine". We always wanted to go and play on the Imagine and imagine different things! I can remember going inside and peeking out through the tiny holes that were put all around it like little windows in a space ship." Lezlee Ormsby-Gillaspie
Sue Crozier of Calhan said she was "so tickled when I read the letter last Sunday about the 'ladybug' slide at Boulder Crescent Park. Except we called it a WHALE and not a ladybug. have no idea why except it was sort of whale-shaped. It was a bright orange dome shaped thing Later on it was painted a ghastly blue color before it disappeared. My folks had a gift shop at 129 N. Tejon in the late '50's-early 60's and I used to take my friends over there to play. Until a few years ago my husband had an office for 25 years in the building across the street which is now owned by the Catholic Diocese. I remember how disappointed I was that the "whale" was no longer there in the 70's for my son to play on."
Parks Department history shows that the playground was installed in 1956 and included “a play sculpture designed by Fred Schumm of Manitou Springs. Built by park employees, the play structure was climbable, with a slide, and made of steel, resin plastics, concrete, plaster, and wax.” The playground was removed in the early 1980s after it was vandalized, no longer met safety standards and was a health and safety problem when people slept in it, drank in it and used it as a restroom, according to the parks department’s Kurt Schroeder.
CONTACT THE WRITER: Send questions to linda.navarro@gazette.com with “Column Question” in the subject line; mail to “Did You Ever Wonder?,” P.O. Box 1779, Colorado Springs 80901; blog gazettewonder.blogspot.com. Queries must be signed. No personal replies; because of limited space, not all questions will be answered.
