A piece of Dixon history: Lowell Park’s connection to Ronald Reagan

Few Dixonites realize that Lowell Park was a popular swimming venue as early as 1912. Starting in 1922, swimming at Lowell Park Beach became a major attraction after the park board built a bathhouse, a new dock and a diving board.

The 1922 bathhouse contained men’s and women’s dressing rooms and showers, while the front area had a concession stand for selling refreshments and renting baskets for storing clothes. The bathhouse was so popular, its baskets could accommodate 800 swimmers.

Since the beach incurred ongoing expenses for paying a lifeguard, maintaining the docks and operating the bathhouse, the park board charged 10 cents for each patron of the bathhouse. Many, however, avoided the dime fee by changing their clothes in public, which resulted in several complaints of indecent exposure.

The 15-year-old lifeguard

In 1926, when the park board advertised a job opening for a lifeguard and swimming instructor, 15-year-old Ronald Reagan jumped at the chance, having taken a lifesaving course at Dixon’s YMCA. Upon being hired, he quit a summer construction job to work full time at Lowell Park.

Lifeguarding at Lowell was not as easy as one might think. Reagan recalled working “seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day.” The pay was $15 a week, which eventually increased to $20 a week.

But Reagan loved the job, and he was good at it. He continued as a lifeguard every summer through his college years, using the money to pay for tuition. After he graduated from Eureka College in 1932, he came home to Dixon for his final summer as a lifeguard at Lowell Park.

Reagan and the Graybills

During his seven summers at Lowell Park Beach, Reagan developed a warm friendship with Ed and Ruth Graybill, who ran the bathhouse and concession stand. The Graybills had hired him in 1926, and Ruth often served him meals at Woodcote.

In 1985, then-President Reagan wrote a letter to Ruth, recalling when she served him spareribs and sauerkraut at Lowell Park. The letter also mentioned one long summer day of working at the beach when he and Johnny Crabtree ate “four pounds of spareribs” that Ruth had prepared.

As one of Reagan’s biggest fans, Ruth always displayed a large portrait of Reagan in her living room. In October 1990, during Reagan’s last visit to Dixon, the 79-year-old former president made a point to walk over to Ruth’s Chevrolet and chat with his 91-year-old friend about their Lowell Park days. With this happy memory, Ruth died in 1995.

Closing the beach

The popularity of Lowell Park Beach eventually subsided. In August 1950, 39-year-old Ronald Reagan returned to Dixon to dedicate the new Memorial Pool on Dixon’s southwest side. The big new city pool likely enticed many to swim there instead of journeying 4 miles to Lowell Park.

Finally, in 1959, the beach was closed due to declining use. Thus, Lowell Park Beach became only a treasured memory for the tens of thousands of people who had enjoyed it for decades.

Restoring the bathhouse

In time, the bathhouse began to fall into disrepair, and in the 1980s, the restrooms at the bathhouse were closed. But in 1997, while Reagan’s health was declining, the community came together to save the historic bathhouse from demolition.

Supporters raised more than $10,000 to repair and restore the bathhouse. The renovated facility was appropriately named Reagan Bathhouse and is now rented in the summer for family events, club meetings, and reunions.

During the renovation, a vintage rental bathing suit, probably from the 1920s, was found in a box at the bathhouse. That suit has been framed and is on display at the Ruth Edwards Nature Center near the front of the park.

About those 77 lives …

Some have scoffed at Reagan’s well-known claim of saving 77 swimmers at Lowell Park Beach. But hundreds of swimmers were known to swim at the beach on any day throughout those seven summers. On peak days, the number could reach 1,000.

If Reagan averaged only 350 swimmers a day for seven 90-day summers, he guarded more than 220,000 swimmers. Saving 77 lives is about the same as one save for every 3,000 swimmers. Sounds about right to me.

Plus, Reagan’s renown as a lifesaver was well known at that time. In the 1920s and 30s, long before he became nationally known, the Telegraph occasionally published articles that chronicled the increasing tally of lives that young Reagan saved.

Precious memories

In his 1990 autobiography, written after he left the presidency, Reagan wrote, “One of the proudest statistics of my life is 77 – the number of people I saved during those seven summers.”

Even though Reagan had prestigious jobs such as movie star, California governor, and U.S. president, he described his lifeguard days at Lowell Park as “one of the best jobs I ever had.”

During Reagan’s final return to Dixon in 1990, Reagan ventured to Lowell Park for one final stroll along the beach. While standing on the shore, Reagan skipped stones on the Rock River, just as he did 60 years earlier. Near that spot, between the river and the Reagan Bathhouse, a bronze historical marker commemorates Reagan’s years at Lowell Park.

Among the many Reagan artifacts on display at the Loveland Museum is a bronze plaque that apparently once accompanied the “Life Saving Log” upon which Reagan placed a notch for each of the 77 lives saved at Lowell Park. Unless you know where it is, the log is lost to history.

• Dixon native Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.