Fanny Chapman Pool Celebrates 95th Year In Doylestown

DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH, Pa. — When the temperature climbs and the humidity settles in, the Fanny Chapman Pool is the place to be.

For close to a century, generations have been making the trek to 10 McKinstry Drive to escape the heat waves of summer.

So it seemed appropriate that Doylestown picked one of the hottest weekends this summer to celebrate the pool’s 95th year of continuous operation complete with cupcakes, a proclamation and, of course, a cooling dip in the pool.

With a splash of nostalgia, borough leaders joined pool managers and longtime pool members to celebrate the pool, which opened on June 21, 1927 just a few short years before the great stock market crash of 1929 and one month after Charles Lindbergh landed in France on his unforgettable flight across the Atlantic.

Among the guests at Saturday’s celebration was 84 year old Doris Carr whose parents took her to the pool for the first time when she was about four or five years old.

“This is the place where you learned how to swim. We were very privileged to have a pool in our town where we could swim,” she said.

When Carr started swimming at Fanny Chapman there were no other pools around. “And very few people had a swimming pool at their house. It was the place to come and to learn and it was as neat as a pin,” she said.

“There were rules and regulations,” she continued. “If you got caught doing something you’d have to sit on the edge of the pool or you couldn’t come for a few days.”

Since the 1950s, the complex has expanded to five pools, including a diving pool, an instructional pool, a children’s wading pool, an adults only pool and the main pool, which continues to be the focal point of the complex nearly a century after it was built.

Since opening, Fanny Chapman has served well over 40,000 families, has taught more than 35,000 how to swim, held more than 400 dive and swim meets, has employed well over 5,000 youth, has been the Bux-Mont Swim League champions for 17 of the last 18 years, and has had five swimmers qualify for the Olympic trials, one of whom made the Olympic team but never competed because the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Games in 1980.

As part of Saturday’s celebration, Justin Guarini, a long time member of the pool and a singer, songwriter and actor, performed a stirring rendition of the National Anthem.

Mayor Noni West presented a proclamation to the pool managers “honoring the occasion and the vision the Mercer’s, the Lear’s, the first board of trustees and those who built upon that vision to make Fanny Chapman one of the most successful swimming and diving programs in southeastern Pennsylvania.”

The gathering also heard from Doylestown Borough Council President Jack O’Brien and 50 year member Christine Harrison, who shared a brief history of the pool. The short ceremony was led by Bob Shaffer, the chairman of the board of managers.

According to Harrison, the pool was a gift to the town from William Mercer and his wife Martha who wanted a safe place for the town’s children to swim. Local newspapers at the time were replete with stories about local kids drowning in area lakes, creeks, rivers and streams.

The Mercer’s funded the building of the new pool, but the land was donated by John Lear who decided during a golf game with Mercer to donate 1.5 acres of his land for the new pool.

“Ninety-five years later you all get to benefit from swimming lessons and swim teams,” said Harrison who gave shout outs to past and present pool board members, lifeguards and the pool’s 17 year manager, Jim Foster, who kept the pool open and in continuous operation, even through COVID.

“When the Mercers decided to build this pool, not only did they have the vision to do it they also left a stipend for the pool out of their foundation,” said Foster. “That was a big help.”

Construction of the new pool began in April 1927 and was completed and opened on June 21, 1927.

“Pools were not commonplace at the time. The Mercer’s were real visionaries and the mission was to teach the community to swim,” said Foster. “And that’s still our mission today.”

The pool was named in memory of William Mercer’s favorite aunt, Fanny Chapman, whose photo is displayed prominently at the entrance to the pool.

Thirty years later, in 1957, Martha Mercer gave the pool to the Borough of Doylestown. And in 1959 Mercer donated two more pools to the complex - the diving pool and the pool on the hill.

Today the pool complex is run by a board of managers at no cost to the taxpayers of the town. And it continues to carry out the vision the Mercer’s had for the pool.

According to Foster, the pool averages about 750 children each summer in swim lessons. “We also had more than 300 on our swim team this year. Both the swim team and the dive team were undefeated. And we have a high school All-American diver.

“We do not receive any tax dollars. We have to earn our way,” said Foster. “And we are able to do that successfully thanks to the good people and the good kids of Doylestown.”