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Like many good stories, the story of parks and recreation in Redwood City began simply. The modest recreation program launched in 1937 would, over the decades, evolve into what is now the city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.
Imagine a warm summer evening in the city. It’s just after dinner time. People are putting away dishes, sitting down with newspapers or turning on the radio. Outside, a breeze rustles the branches of the trees, and the laughter of children at play drifts through the air.
Right about now, as the light over the hills is turning golden, a young man with red hair is driving down Roosevelt Avenue in a gray Model T Ford. When he gets to the softball field at Hawes Park, he unloads the bats and balls he always keeps in the back of his car. Then he gets out the old line marker, fills it with chalk, and starts to line the field. Once that’s done, he puts four quarters into the machine that turns on the field lights. By then, players are warming up, and spectators are arriving. When the 200-seat bleachers are just about filled, twilight has fallen. The players take the field, and the crowd cheers. It’s time to play ball.
For Alfred “Red” Morton, the young man with the red hair and the Model T, that was a typical summer night in 1937. Hired in July to be Redwood City’s First recreation director, Red ran an operation that was simplicity itself. He had two part-time assistants to help him oversee the recreation facilities at Hawes, Mezes, and Chestnut parks. His office was a shared space in the basement of the Carnegie Library at Broadway and Jefferson.
The program Red put together that first year concentrated on the basics. He revived the adult softball league, introduced junior Softball, and started a supervised program of playground activities. Since his salary was only $50 (approx. $ 1,100 today) a month, he continued to work full-time as a truck driver for Associated Oil, routinely putting in 70 hours a week between his two jobs.
Red’s enthusiasm and work ethic were contagious. In October 1937, Redwood City established its Park and Recreation Commission to help plan the city’s future recreation facilities. In a time when it was tough to make ends meet financially, the commission looked for practical ways to accomplish its goals.
One of the first ideas was to use the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which then employed about 49,000 people across the country in city recreation departments. In 1938, while City Hall and the Library were being built under WPA sponsorship, a small group of WPA workers, directed by Red Morton, helped start the city’s recreation programs. Morton found another source of assistance. He enlisted the city’s school facilities and teachers.
During the early years of the Recreation Department, the Sequoia High School gym and swimming pool offered a full schedule of activities for both adults and youngsters. This program of cooperation between the school district and the recreation department was the first of its kind in California. While the people who started Redwood City’s parks and recreation programs were practical, they weren’t afraid to dream.
Today, the fruits of these early pioneers remain evident to all who witness and partake.
Everything else is just history
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