A Fairmount Park guard stands dutifully in front of the Saylor Grove Guard Box circa 1807-71. | Photo: CBS3
Philadelphia once had two independent police forces: the regular men in blue and another force called the Fairmount Park Guards. Formed in 1868, the Park Guards was at one point the third largest police force in Pennsylvania—behind only the police forces of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. A century later, in 1972, the two police forces finally merged.
The Fairmount Park Guards patrolled the park by foot, horseback and even bicycle to provide information and security to Fairmount Park visitors. They also kept watch over the park’s greenery and its collection of mansions, statues and fountains, all while routinely returning lost children to parents. Furthermore, the guards patrolled the Schuylkill River to prevent accidental drownings and to provide assistance whenever someone fell through the ice when the river froze.
When not making their rounds, guards were often found resting or doing paperwork in wooden shelters known as guard boxes (or houses, shacks, or shelters). The Fairmount Park Commission had installed over a hundred guard boxes throughout the park for the officers. The small structures were generally built in one of two architectural styles—Gothic Revival (or Victorian) or Craftsman. Besides those built in the 19th century, additional shelters were constructed by the Works Projects Administration from 1935 until 1943. Each one had a telephone and wood or coal stove.
The restored Washington Square guard house. | Photo: Rona Buchalter
In an interview last year on KYW Newsradio, Lucy Strackhouse, executive director of the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust, recounted that the Fairmount Park Commission decided in the 1950s to get rid of the remaining shacks, many of which were approaching a hundred years old. Most were either destroyed or simply given away. As late as the 1970s, the city was actively auctioning them off for as little as ten dollars each.
The few remaining shelters serve as monuments to the century of dedicated service that the Fairmount Park Guards gave to Philadelphia. Some are cared for by the Trust. “We have about twelve of them left at this point, and we guard them very carefully,” said Strackhouse. Many are in critical need of repair. One, at Belmont and Montgomery Drives, was lost a few years ago to a head-on car collision, its left over parts salvaged for the repair of others, and kept in a clandestine “guard box graveyard.” The graveyard has slowly vanished as restoration work has progressed.
About two years ago, as Christopher Mote reported on these pages, the Trust collaborated with the National Park Service to restore an 1870s era guard box at the southeast corner of Washington Square. A second guard box is in the square’s northwestern quadrant. Earlier, the Trust restored the guard house on Eakins Oval used by the parking attendant there.
Restored Saylor Grove Guard Box. | Image courtesy of the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust
Last year, the Trust, along with the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, Kurtz Roofing and Construction, and the West Chelten Neighbors Association, restored the Saylor Grove Guard Box next to Lincoln Drive at Wissahickon Avenue. The reconditioned box, granted a 2014 Grand Jury Prize by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, was reinstalled on a new foundation in spring 2013, and now sports its original Victorian color scheme. The restoration of this box is part of the Trust’s mission: to preserve, develop, and manage historic properties and other cultural resources in Fairmount Park. The Trust has incorporated the Saylor Grove Guard Box into an interpretive area to educate park users on the importance of the Park Guard—and their guard boxes—to Fairmount Park’s history.
Perhaps the most conspicuous of guard boxes was at the traffic triangle at 21st Street and the Ben Franklin Parkway, just east of Eakins Oval. Built around 1873 (or perhaps even earlier), this six-sided Gothic Revival guard shelter was ten feet in diameter with a concave octagonal roof and gingerbread trim. It also had columns and large pointed-arch windows on every side. Like most all of the Fairmount Park Guard Houses, it was shaped like a pagoda, for Victorians were fascinated by Asian architecture and objects.
The Centennial Guard House photographed after it was restored in 1973, before it was moved to The Binswanger Triangle from the northwest corner of East River Drive and Fairmount Avenue. | Image courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey.
This guard box was probably first set up at East River (now Kelly) Drive and Green Street. It was later moved a bit to the northwest corner of East River Drive and Fairmount Avenue, where it continued to serve for decades as an entranceway into Fairmount Park. In 1973, the old shack was restored by the Fairmount Park Commission to mark the Bicentennial and was immediately moved about a quarter mile to the southeast. It received a place of honor on the triangular spot where the inner lanes of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway split to create Eakins Oval at Art Museum Drive. By then, the little shack was better known as the Centennial Guard House because it must have been fabricated as part of a batch of guard boxes for use during the Centennial International Exposition of 1876, and also because it became prominently known around town after the disposition of most of the other boxes. (Other boxes could rightfully have been called the “Centennial Guard House.”)
The Centennial Guard House was removed in 1986 so that the traffic triangle could be planted with flowers. The resulting garden is surrounded by a three-foot concrete wall that was designed to prevent pedestrians from trampling the plantings. In November, 1986, the place was christened “The Binswanger Triangle,” for the Binswanger family that planted the flowers—with the blessing of the Fairmount Park Commission, whose members back then included Frank G. Binswanger, Sr. (The Binswanger family is also responsible for a just installed grove of trees at Belmont Plateau, as we reported last week.)
Meanwhile, the Centennial Guard House languished for a few years beside a rusted dumpster in the Fairmount Park maintenance yard on Monument Road off Martin Luther King Drive. The Fairmount Park Commission had notions of restoring it and placing it next to the Horticultural Center in West Fairmount Park, but those plans evidently did not come to pass. In addition, the local chapter of the Victorian Society in America was set to rebuild the Centennial Guard House in the 1990s, but nothing came of this. The whereabouts this once-elegant and romantic guard box are unknown.
A fine replica of the Centennial Guard House stands in the center of Rittenhouse Square, replacing an earlier guard box that had been there for many years. So detailed and fine is this $126,000 reproduction that one might think that it is the very same guard shack that once stood near Eakins Oval. But this is not the case. In the 1980s, the Friends of Rittenhouse Square had this shelter custom-made in England according to designs by Campbell-Thomas Architects and then shipped it to Philadelphia.
One guard box would probably be better forgotten: in Cobbs Creek Park at 63rd and Catherine Streets, an unarmed Park Guard inside his guard house was killed on August 29, 1970, as part of an attempt to blow up the shack with grenades. Sgt. Frank R. VonColln was shot in the back five times while talking on a telephone; his gun was still in his desk. Officer VonColln was the one of only a few Fairmount Park Guards ever killed in the line of duty.
“Guard House, at entrance to Fairmount Park.” This may very be the Centennial Guard House at its prior location at East River Drive and Fairmount Avenue. The row houses visible in the left background are a mystery, but the photograph, taken circa 1870, (an albumen on stereograph mount) may have been taken looking to the southeast. | Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia
Several blocks away, a second officer had been shot and wounded a few minutes earlier. Two Philadelphia Police Highway Patrolmen investigating the crimes were the third and fourth shooting victims in Cobbs Creek the following day. Police commissioner Frank Rizzo blamed the attacks on “organized revolutionaries” who had set out to “shoot pigs.” Five suspects, all members of a radical group associated with the Black Panthers, were eventually brought to justice.
Perhaps this sad affair helped to hasten the incorporation of the Park Guards into the regular Philadelphia Police force some two years later. VonColln’s name has since been attached, as a memorial, to the baseball park alongside the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
In 1990, the Philadelphia Ranger Corps, the Friends of Pennypack Park, and the Metropolitan District Council of Carpenters collaborated to rebuild the guard house at the Pine Road entrance to Pennypack Park. The structure was to serve as a headquarters for the Pennypack Park rangers. It is still staffed some weekends by FOPP volunteers.
There are two guard boxes on Bucks County Community College’s campus and one was recently restored by students in the historic preservation program. Interestingly, another guard box serves as a garden shed for a house that was for sale a few years ago on West Pastorius Street. Yet another is being used as an information booth at a mall in Cape May, New Jersey. (A comment (below) indicates that this shack may be the very one in which Officer VonColln lost his life.)
A handful of other guard boxes still remain, serving various purposes, throughout the Fairmount Park system.
Author’s Note: This piece was gathered in the course of research for my third book, The Benjamin Franklin Parkway (2014). This Arcadia Publishing title is a postcard history book that traces the development of the Parkway and the various institutions along the Parkway through the use of period postcards and other images, followed by explanatory captions.
Excellent article!!
Thanks!
My Dad was a Fairmont Park guard appointed by Jack Kelly Grace’s Dad my Gmom a widow knocked on his door.They all went to StBridgets.you where not allowed to go in the guard box unless extreme weather.My Dad said.They would feel your badge if it was hot you where sent home without pay
Wow, I’ve been going to that info booth the Washington Street Mall in Cape May for years and years and years (and more years) — never knew it was a famed guard house!
In 2010, I was working for an agent that had 261 W Pastorius Street listed for sale. I fell in love with that home, which was a restored Victorian Carriage house from 1880. Beautiful wood inside with the original barn doors. It had one of the Guard Houses in the yard, and the owner was using it for a garden shed. I can’t remember how it ended up in the yard; someone had moved it there at some point. At any rate, it was a cool, one-of-a-kind element that you don’t normally see! (I’m assuming this is the property you are referencing in your article, which sold in 2010 and has not come back on the market since.)
Great article. A lot of good information. I had forgotten that the Park had their own police force. Thank you Harry.
Thanks!
The expplination given by my parents, who have lived in Philadelphia since the mid-1960s, is that the Park Guards were merged into the PPD under Frank Rizzo (Sr) in a move to consolidate power: he didn’t like that there were police in the city who were not under his control.
Thanks for this article, Harry. I am stunned to read that the Centennial Guard House has disappeared altogether. What a splendid thing it was and I had hoped it was being repurposed somewhere… Alas.
But thanks as always for your excellent piece.
Wonderful article, Harry. Those guard boxes are such interesting little jewel boxes.
FYI, according to this website there appears to be at least one other Fairmount park officer who was killed in the line of duty:
http://www.odmp.org/agency/4583-fairmount-park-police-department-pennsylvania
Thank you!
No it was not a station
Really enjoyed this article. Harry are you familiar with the building/structure in Clark Park in University City, along 45th St between Chester and Woodlawn? I’ve often wondered if that was a guard station.
No, I’m afraid not..
Great article. My great-grandfather, William Long, was a captain in the park police so anything pertaining to Fairmount Park is of interest to me. Thanks.
Ray,
Your gf Ray and his older brother William Jr were friends of my Mom in the 1930-1940’s before she was married. I still remember her talking about the times she would spend at your ggf’s home in what we call today the “Historic Rittenhouse Town”.
Thanks for crediting the photograph of the “Centennial Guard House” to the Historic American Buildings Survey of the National Park Service.
Conducting research on a historic building, site, or landscape? Consult the nation’s largest archive of historic architectural, engineering, and landscape documentation – the HABS/HAER/HALS Collection – at The Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/
Access to the website and downloads of HABS/HAER/HALS drawings, photographs and historical reports are FREE!
I’ve been passing the guard house off Lincoln Drive for years now on my way up to the Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Center) on Emlen Street and for years wondered what the decrepit little shelter was. I thought it might have been a sort of toll booth from years back as S. Jersey has several roads which were toll roads in the 1800’s. Then I noticed it was gone and then lo and behold! It was back but in a new location. It’s beautifully restored and I love seeing it every time I drive up there. Thanks for the article, I’m going to look for the other ones mentioned!
My father-in-law, then FPG Lt. Dick Burke, was Sgt. Von Colln’s friend and supervisor. Many thanks for posting this!
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Here is an update, which I can not independently confirm. Sorry I can not
find the original link:
From Facebook Page “Old Images of Philadelphia”
“December 13 Comment by Ann Weightman:
There’s a guard house in Cape May at the Washington Street mall.
It was moved from 63rd & Catherine in 1970 after Officer Frank
Von Colln was murdered while sitting at his desk inside the guardhouse.
Frank Von Colln was born in Cape May and lived on Washington St.”
I don’t believe that the facility in Cape May was involved in the homicide of Sgt VonCollin. There were several Park Police Districts 90, 91, 92,93 and 94 which had stand alone buildings.
Harry,
I remember the guardhouse at 21st & the Parkway. We’d keep our eye on it when we would play our baseball games on the greensward at 23rd St, PA Avenue and the Parkway during the 1950’s. Ballplaying was prohibited on the Parkway and when the guard would emerge from the shack, we’d watch to see if he was coming toward us to break up our game. Thankfully, most of the time he didn’t.
POLICE OFFICER
JAMES E. CUMMINGS
DIED IN THE LINE OF DUTY
FROM HEART ATTACK
End of Watch: LOOKING FOR DATE
November 17, 1968
Park Policeman James E. Cummings was found slumped in a chair and not breathing in a Park Police Guard Box at 54th and Elmwood streets by Sergeant James Maleno. Possible, a heart attack. AND THE HOLE STORY I’m president of the Philadelphia Police Museum “Scratch”
Thank for the article, my father was a member of the park guard from 1947 to 1968 one of his many areas in the Park was the David Rittenhouse birth place. His guard stand still stand today on Lincoln Drive. Our family lived in the Rittenhouse home from 1950 to 1956. Many of the guards and their families lived and cared for the homes in the park. My father James E Cummings was also a member of the mounded guard and the stables are still in the park today. Sadly I’m told most of the records of the Fermont Park Guard have been lost in a fire. My father lost his life on duty November 1968. I would be very interested if anyone had old photographs and stories from that era.
My father was a Fairmount Parkguard from 1942 to 1961mounted patrol. His guard box was on Kelly Drive. I have enjoyed this article very much. I go to cape May mall every summer. Never knew about the guard box. Certainly will check it out.
Dear Harry………….great piece!! I loved it. One minor fix: You detail that two Pa. State Troopers were shot in Cobbs Creek the day after Park Sgt. Frank VonColln was shot dead. We were Philadelphia Police Highway Patrolmen.
Thanks you all for the comments and correction…
I was on the safety patrol in the 1940’s and would stand with the Park guard and Pratt St and Roosevelt Blvd. The guard house was there also. A few times the park guard would have me stay in the guard house if there was a bad snow storm.
Hello,
Just to clear up some things. Sgt Frank Von Colon was assassinared in what was a park police station ( 93rd) district). Not a shack, as it housed the mounted police horses next to the station. I was a park guard in 1968 until our merge with the phila P D. Not much changed but our uniforms. I was a mounted police officer 1971 to 1980 when the entire 93rd district was shut down completely. The parks then became a disaster. As far as the guard boxes were concerned, they were something special but don’t get caught inside one unless it was 18 degrees outside and you were allowed 10 min inside. Just enough to stoke the pot belly stave.
Reading the comments about the Park Guards, I have one question, did you know Sonny Laboo? Also, I grew up in the 400 Block of CobbsCreek Parkway and played Little League Baseball at the fields just across the creek from the guardhouse/stable.I remember the Sgt. who was killed as the person who would always ask us(Cobb’s Creek Cubs) how the game went as he knew my dad who was a Philly police officer and our coach. I knew other officers from the 93rd district (Captain Walker, Officer Gramby, Officer Steward, Sgt. Bethea and another officer whose nickname was “Crip” I don’t recall his real name.
I played pick-up basketball with Sonny LaBoo mostly at Cobbs Creek on Sunday mornings. I was introduced to this crew by James Johnson now deceased. Sonny was an extra in a movie. The officer killed was VonCollin (sic). Police were looking for a suspect with a street name of “Sad Sack”.
Hello!! I was a freshmen at Moore College of Art & Design in 1980 and was given an assignment to do a 2 dimensional replica of a 3 dimensional structure and I chose the Victorian Guard House at 21st & The Parkway. I used balsa wood pop sickle sticks, toothpicks, tissue paper and an old gold link chain necklace my mother had to create the guard house and triangle. It obviously turned out pretty good. I never got it back from the school. I thought that it was removed for renovation. I always thought that it was perfect at that location. That should have just created a flower garden around it!!
I am the cousin of the young woman Edith M.
Roscioli. Worked at the horse barn. Found hanging on New Years Eve 1972. Her parents spoke to her and she asked. them to wait for her to come home to celebrate.
Her broken-hearted Mom never believed she hung herself. She loved taking care of the horses. She was 20 yrs old. I would like to know if technology might see the details differently today.
I had a Grandfather who always took me to the fish aquarium and to get spring water at the Park.
They lived off Allegheny Ave and 28th St. A Corpus Christi Parish.
A safe wonderful neighborhood.