Welcome to Himmel Park Library's 50th Anniversary Blog

Thank you for sharing your stories!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Alyce Collinge Memorial







My Mother Alyce Collinge joined then Tucson Public Library in 1967. She became Himmel's manager in 1968. Himmel had a staff of 9, 3 librarians, 3 clerks and 3 pages, the pages and one clerk were part-time, one librarian, Eddie Brooks, was the children's librarian. Former Tucson City Manager, Joel Valdez, who had just begun his carrer, was one of the clerks. If you look closely at the 1961 photo you will see there is no conference room. It was added sometime after my Mother transferred to the Woods Library in 1970. The rest of the library is much as she knew it, minus the computers! Himmel was her favorite library, she had a great staff and she loved the sense of community inside and outside the library. Look for her memorial tree on the right as you walk into the library and remember her words: "Plant the Seed, Read." John Collinge, Bethesda, Maryland

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Yarn Bombing at Himmel



Happy (first ever) International Yarn Bombing Day! at Himmel Saturday June 11th, 2011

The Southern Pacific Steam Engine no. 1673

The Southern Pacific Steam Engine no. 1673 that once resided in Himmel Park was manufactured in 1900. The engine was based in Tucson and operated in southern Arizona and was used primarily to haul freight trains. The engine was retired in 1955 and was used in various Hollywood films including “Oklahoma”. The engine was then donated to the Arizona Historical Society in 1962 where it sat until construction on the Historical Society’s building resulted to its move to Himmel Park. The engine proved to be a popular attraction and had to have a fence constructed around it to prevent vandalism. By the 1990’s, the engine was in an advanced state of deterioration and was almost scrapped. Tucson citizens intervened and formed the 1673 Task Force which had the engine registered on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1994 the engine was taken apart and restored and looked exactly how it did when it was retired in 1955. In December of 2000, the engine was moved out of Himmel Park and relocated to the Southern Pacific Depot in downtown Tucson. In 2005 the engine was opened to public display and currently resides there.

Sources:
Diamond, L. (1979, September 6). Catch 22 Holds Engine 1673 on Tracks at Himmel Park. The Tucson Citizen.

Captive Nations Monument



The Captive Nations Monument located in the northwest portion of Himmel Park was dedicated on March 8, 1986. This dedication included half dozen speakers and around two hundred spectators. The monument was constructed by Tucson sculptor Aureleo Rosano and commissioned by the Captive Nations Coordinating Committee of Tucson to commemorate the suffering and lack of human rights afforded to citizens that lived under the Soviet-bloc or Soviet influenced countries during the Cold War. The monument took Rosano around three hundred hours to complete and lists nineteen countries the committee considered to be “captive countries.” The monument weighs 1,600 pounds and cost $1,500 to build.

Source: Limberis, C. (1986, March 9). Panel Remembering “Captive Nations” Dedicates Monument in Himmel Park. The Arizona Daily Star.

Prudence Myrland Waid Haney



Mrs. Prudence Myrland Waid Haney, a retired T.U.S.D. teacher, grew up in a home at the corner of Tucson Blvd. and Hawthorne Street. The Himmel's Edmond homestead was a desert playground across the street. She remembers playing in the open area which is now the park creating small hut structures in the creosote bushes and riding her bike in her Levis with her girlfriends on Saturday mornings as the "Girls Levi Club". She also remembers the University of Arizona's ROTC Calvary riding their horses along trails in the area that is now the park. Since the university stables were close they would ride out form the U of A down Hawthorne across Tucson Blvd. and into the trails in the area of Himmel-Edmondson homestead land. Himmel Park and the library are named after Mrs. Alvina Himmel Edmondson who sold the land to the city that was latter developed into the park. Prudence Haney remembers the original Himmel homestead. Alvina and her three daughters Catherine, Grace and Alvina. At first Prudence and her girlfriends were afraid of the old red wood homestead with the tin roof, but after an accident when they needed to get help they found Alvina kind and helpful. Prudence remembers Alvina's family coming to her house to fill up buckets with water because they had forgotten to pay their water bill.

Himmel Rules



So, one morning…I come in to work. I and the janitor are the only ones there. I say good morning, how are you, blah dee blah blah; etc. He says, "oh, one interesting thing…somebody left an old mattress in front of the library." Out front? That’s weird, I said, thinking someone had dumped it by the curb for trash pickup. To which he says, "No, it was in the grass, right in front of the branch."
I said, well, that doesn’t make any sense. He said, "Well, the really weird part is that it had, written on it, in big, block letters, NANINI RULES – HIMMEL BITES THE BIG ONE (??)"
I stared at him for a moment. Then, I said, No, I don’t think so, but that’s funny. And he said, "No, really, it did." And I said, Ha ha, right. And where is this ‘message on a mattress’ "In the dumpster over by the pool." On the other side of the park? "Yeah." Okay, wait a minute.
And I proceeded to take a walk across the park to the pool area. And there, leaning against the dumpster is a mattress with, sure enough, printed in giant, perfect block letters, it says, NANINI RULES – HIMMEL BITES THE BIG ONE.
So the next person to arrive is the Branch Manager, Carl Ann Rott. I proceed to tell her about the mattress. She proceeds to say, "Ha, Ha, right." I tell her that it’s the truth. She then takes a little walk across the park.
We never did find out who left it. It didn’t make sense for it to be a member of the public, why would anyone compare the top-circulating branch in the system to little Himmel in the first place. It had to be an inside job. We suspected a couple of our pages. Carol Ann, who managed Nanini just before Himmel, thought maybe it was a personal jab of some kind. We called around. No one ever fessed up.
A few years later, I had moved on to Wilmot library but had been invited to Carol Ann’s retirement party. A day or two before her last day I was driving down the street and I saw an old mattress someone had thrown away. So when Carol Ann came in for her last day, there it was propped up against the park water fountain, and on it was written HIMMEL RULES – CAROL ANN ROCKS.