Westminster Community Pond gets major plastic surgery at age
60
Eagle Archives
By Kevin E. Dayhoff, kevindayhoff@gmail.com
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Sixty years ago on Sat., Sept. 18, 1954, the Route 140 “Roadside
Picnic Area and Community Fish Pond” was dedicated with great fanfare by
then-Md. Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin in a program that lasted all afternoon
beginning at 2 p.m..
Today most folks know the ‘Community Fish Pond’ at the
intersection of Routes 97-north and 140 as the ‘Westminster Community Pond’ but
many know it as the ‘Westminster Duck Pond.’ In the late 1950s it simply known
as Bloom Pond – named after the family, Russell and Mary Bloom that ‘sold’ the property
for $10.00 to “the State of Maryland, to the use of the Department of Game and
Inland Fish of Maryland” as described in a deed executed on June 10, 1954.
Recently the pond has been in the news. It is undergoing
major reconstruction. Many folks have asked about the work being done on the
pond – and curious about the history of the park.
A January
13, 2014 press release from Jeff R. Degitz, administer of Carroll
County recreation and parks explained the “Pond will be closed for construction
and major renovations beginning Wednesday, January 15, 2014. Planned
renovations include the enlargement of the pond… and additional parking…”
On Feb.
27, 2011, writer Katie V. Jones reported in the Carroll Eagle that the “popular Westminster park could see its pond
triple in size with the addition of walking trails and a fishing pier…”
It just so happens that I was getting a haircut at Cal
Bloom’s Barber Shoppe, just after 2 in the afternoon a couple of weeks ago on
Sept. 18. The barber, Cal Bloom, is the son of Russell and Mary Bloom.
And of course, our conversation drifted to the history of
the pond and the barber shop that he opened on May 1, 1985. Bloom explained
that his father started the pond in the middle of what was then, a large swamp;
in part, in an attempt to drain the area to help protect the family farm’s
livestock that were getting stuck in the wetlands.
The pond was dedicated just a few short months after Route
140 opened in July 1954. In his remarks McKeldin noted, “The increase in
travel, the expansion of tourist business which we are encouraging, and the
rapid growth of our highway system under our 12-year road construction program
creates some problems…The Kiwanis Club of Westminster is due high praise for
sponsoring this Community fish pond and roadside picnic area.”
After the pond and park area was turned-over to the state,
the picnic area and other improvements to the pond were undertaken by the
Kiwanis Club of Westminster and the Carroll County Chapter of the Isaac Walton
League.
Although the practice of taking bread to the pond to feed
the ducks has been discredited for many years; some of my fondest childhood
memories are of feeding the ducks on a Saturday afternoon or after church on
Sunday after having lunch at Baugher’s restaurant or the nearby “Snaks By Twin
Kiss Drive-In.”
++++++
Kevin Dayhoff for Westminster Common Council
Westminster Municipal election May 14, 2019
Authority Caroline Babylon, Treasurer.
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