Gowrie City Park and Band Concerts

The Gowrie city park comprised one whole city block and as I’ve indicated was located about half a block from the little brown house. When we lived there it had a goodly number of graceful elms, which I understand have now fallen victim to the Dutch elm disease and are now gone. There were also quite a few elms in the eastern part of the town. I suppose that now, maples and oaks provide most of the trees in the park.

The park is traversed by two paths, more or less crossing from corner to the opposite corner. In the center of the park was the band shell and in from of it the seats for the summer band concerts. The band shell faced south, there was a small extending apron. The exterior was stucco. The building had two (four?) pillar-like appendages at the side of the front and these had sockets for light bulbs which were never used in them. The interior had a couple of stepped-up areas from front to rear on which the band would sit while performing. The walls and ceiling were a robin’s egg blue. By the middle 1990s the structure had deteriorated and the old shell was either town down (or possibly it was burned) and a replacement was built.

I think there was a town band initially but I don’t know how it was organized or supported. Later on, after a band program was started in the Gowrie school, I think the school band was the nucleus for the band performing in the park. Occasionally I think the Karl King band from Fort Dodge would perform.

I don’t recall how long the concert season was, but I suppose it was just the summer months. Before we moved to the Peterson farm, we children would usually attend the band concerts, oftentimes with a nickel for a sack of popcorn. The popcorn was produced by two small portable machines with their little kerosene-fired poppers. I can’t recall either of my parents attending the weekly concerts, perhaps it was an activity which they felt they could not spare the time for. My father would have enjoyed them — they were typically mostly march selections which he liked.

The band shell was also the focus of programs and observances on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. The Memorial Day program would include a procession in which the American Legion marching band would lead the way to the cemetery west of town. There would be a closing ceremony there with a ritual volley of rifle fire at the end. Then people would place flowers on the graves, both of the servicemen but also of relatives.

The Fourth of July program was more extensive and in addition to a parade would include a band concert and a talk by some state or county political figure. The park was also the site of a carnival on the Fourth, the rides and sideshows arriving about a week before the Fourth and leaving directly after. The rides usually included a merry-go-round, a ferris wheel, and some other whirling device. I was much taken by watching them put up and I guess I was allowed to watch this, with proper cautions. The Fourth celebrations were well attended by people from neighboring towns and the countryside and the poor park grass was trampled and littered afterward. I recall collecting as many different kinds of pop-bottle top caps as I could find in the aftermath of the celebration.