Huntington Park System  

Huntington's park system had its beginning in 1908. When, in the face of considerable opposition, Rufus Switzer, then a member of the City Council, had the council approve the purchase of land along Four Pole Creek south of 13th Avenue between 8th and 12th Streets from the Huntington Land Company totaling 55 acres . The purchase was ostensibly for an incinerator, but Mr. Switzer had conceived the idea of making it a park and this idea was carried out. In consideration of the City's building a road along his property, C.L. Ritter donated two additional tracts of land consisting of 20 acres. The resulting 75 acres was named "Ritter Park." Rufus Switzer is considered the "Father of
Huntington's Park System."Switzer was mayor of Huntington during the purchase of land for the park.

In 1909 after Switzer's re-election, he hired J.T. Withers, a New Jersey landscape architect, to create a master plan for the new parks development. The plan was not implemented due to Switzer's defeat at the polls in the next election. The new administration hired local talent to draw up the parks plan and began developing it. Ritter Park officially opened on September 11, 1913.
(>This photo was taken during the official opening ceremony.Courtesy of The Herald Dispatch. )

On the north side of Four Pole Creek just east of Tenth Street, was located one of the first features undertaken. A lake named "Chaposcanwe". Its name came from the first letters of the four commissioners names. The local talent's results were not grand. The lake was said to be little more than a mud hole. The dam erected to create the lake had to be blown down after a child had drowned.

The urgings of the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs to the West Virginia Legislature did not fall on deaf ears. In 1925 the Huntington Board of Park Commissioners was created to begin the full scale development of the city park system.