The Secrets of Tuolumne’s Reid Park
The Reid Sanitarium once stood on the property of Reid Park. Photo courtesy of Tuolumne City Memorial Museum.
Story by Jerome Peterson
The entrance to Reid Park is on the corner of Carter Street and Bay Avenue in downtown Tuolumne. An arched sign spans the spacious opening greeting visitors with the words “Reid Park” painted on it. The fence around the commons looks like it’s from a San Francisco pier with an iron cable needling through large square posts that stand 32 inches high. The thick grassy area is totally exposed to the sun, all 50 x 100 feet of it. It’s the type of public park that invites you to sit in the middle of its beauty and meditate or express yourself with a form of artwork: like sitting cross legged, singing Mother Nature songs, and accompanying yourself with an acoustic guitar. What comes as a delightful surprise, however, is while meditating or singing to the planet you realize this quaint little oasis has the best kept secret in the territory: a wishing well!
According to James Woods, maintenance supervisor for the Tuolumne Park and Recreation District, who also maintains Reid Park on a regular basis, says the active well was found by accident in 1997 after he and a fellow employee, Tom Connoly, began to tear down a decrepit wooden shed that was built on top of the site. Much to their surprise, the thirty-foot water source was discovered after removing the wooden floor. Suggestions and plans were tossed about until the final decision was made to cover the well, install a small breathing water drain, and build a small structure to cover the hole of the water source. This wishing house was complete with roof, base, and inoperative windlass – a type of winch used to lower and raise buckets up from wells. Typically water would be pumped from a pool at the base of the wishing well into a bucket that is hung from the windlass. When the bucket fills up the water trickles back into the small pool. It is here where coins can be tossed and wishes made.
For those of you not familiar in knowing how to make a wish at a wishing well, here’s what you do. Position your body within coin tossing distance from the well. Turn around so your back is to the well. Feet shoulder width apart. Take a coin out of your pocket. The coin can be any amount, for the amount doesn’t make the wish happen any sooner or stronger. Take the coin in hand and place it on top of your thumbnail. Aim the piece over your right or left shoulder. Close your eyes; think as hard as you can on your wish and visualize it coming true in your mind. Flick the tip of your thumb off the index finger. After the toss, quickly turn to see where your coin landed. If you missed the entire pool, try again. If you missed a third time fate is telling you your astrology sign is not lined up for that day. If there are ripples in the water, you made a bull’s eye. Congratulations! For your wish to be completely sealed don’t tell a soul what you wished for; and before you know it – “ta-da” – your wish will come true in wishing well time.
Present day Reid Park. Photo by Thomas Atkins
Reid Park is also known for its roses that grow just beyond the cable fence. In between these vibrant flowers of romance are sturdy benches where a passerby can read, watch people, or daydream. A couple of immediate local businesses have been notified by the Park and Recreation that they are free to cut the flowers. Do you think these rose pickers sneak over and make a wish at the well; perhaps they wish the roses might bring them health, wealth, or romance.
The park not only has a wishing well and roses, but it is also full of history. Reid Park is named after Eugene Reid, a doctor hired by the Westside Lumber Company in 1906 to be the company and local physician. He practiced his service in a three story building on the corner where Reid Park rests today. The Tuolumne City Memorial Museum provides the information that the building was originally built as a “sanitarium”. (The New Oxford American Dictionary defines sanitarium as an establishment for the medical treatment of people who are convalescing or have a chronic illness.) After Doctor Reid’s retirement, the building was turned into a boarding house. The upstairs rooms, originally used for patients, became apartments for loggers, mill workers or young couples while the downstairs doctor’s office was turned into a dining room for the boarders. As a rooming house, the structure went through several owners and name changes, including Collier’s Hotel and the Sierra Inn.
The feeling one gets at Reid Park can be closely compared to a lazy Sunday afternoon; yet the source of the peaceful easy feeling goes beyond the noticeable. When you visit Reid Park go to the sidewalk that divides Carter Street from the park. Look toward the park. Off to your left are three myrtle trees, the wishing well, another myrtle and a dogwood; immediately in front of you and to the right are roses. A healthy rectangle of green grass is ahead of you as well as the vision of the sanitarium that once stood so many years ago. Look at the length of lawn and imagine the halls in the hospital. Imagine rooms branching off from the halls and emotional cries coming from patients of those rooms. Imagine nurses hurrying about helping Doctor Reid administering mercy to the sick and recovering. Finally, take a gaze toward the end of the park. There you will find on the other side of the alley a funeral home. Huh. How ironic. Many sources of easiness can be found at Reid Park; some obvious, some not – some morbid, some fulfilling. A slow, thoughtful visit to this unique corner of Tuolumne should be able to open eyes, arouse curiosity, and perhaps satisfy a restless heart.
Reid Park is not a huge park or a fun filled equipment playground for fast lane people. If you want to be by yourself, be artistic, or snuggle with a significant other, while soaking up some lazy sun this park is your gig. Before you fall asleep in the middle of the park, don’t forget the novel benefits of roses, a wishing well, and a pensive past that make Reid Park what it is today. Oh and by the way, wishes do come true if acted upon…
