Look Back: Group pushed for horse track at Kirby Park

Two years before Kirby Park on the west side of the Market Street Bridge officially became Kirby Park, the Wilkes-Barre Riding and Driving Club lobbied for a horse racing track in 1922.

Members of the riding and driving club that reorganized in early 1922 having had a club in the 1880s and 1890s met at the Hart Hotel on East Market Street, Wilkes-Barre, to discuss their efforts at building a racing track at today’s Kirby Park.

“The Wilkes-Barre Riding and Driving Club asks for only what is right and just in putting in its claim for a half-mile track to permit the enjoyment of their chosen sport in rivalry to the mania for speed,” reported the Wilkes-Barre Record on Jan. 19, 1922, of the meeting at the Hart Hotel held the previous night.

Kirby Park would be officially dedicated on June 4, 1924, in an event deemed as “Kirby Day,” in honor of businessman and philanthropist Fred Morgan Kirby.

Wilkes-Barre City took control of what became Kirby Park by imminent domain in 1921. For the next three years, the area was transformed into the park by leveling the ground and removal of numerous ponds.

With its wide open space, the area was keen for horses.

“Kirby Park offers ideal facilities for horseback riding and many equestrians have taken advantage of this opportunity for real outdoor sport of the most beneficial type,” the Times Leader Evening News reported Dec. 4, 1922.

The Kirby Park Commission, which oversaw the building of Kirby Park, was open to the idea of building a horse track and horse stables.

Plans called for the horse racing track with a grass field in the middle to be used by youth athletic associations in the Wyoming Valley to play football and baseball. Stables would be constructed on the outside of the track where today’s tennis courts are located.

“Members of the Wilkes-Barre Riding and Driving Club are not by any means going to give up their plans and intend to continue in their efforts to have a portion of Kirby Park given over for their purpose,” the Record reported Jan. 19, 1922.

In describing Kirby Park, the riding and driving club recognized the area as having three miles of riding paths in open space, among trees and along the Susquehanna River.

“So near to the city and yet away from automobile traffic, horse lovers who don’t live in the frontier countryside have come to enjoy the benefits of the open space,” the Record reported.

“Back in the 1880s and 1890s, Wilkes-Barre was known far and wide as the home of many beautiful and well known women riders but the younger generation have favored the automobile. So the reorganization of the Wilkes-Barre Riding and Driving Club to bring back horse riding as a hobby remains plausible for a horse track,” reported the Record.

Efforts by the riding and driving club for a horse track was not to be as the organization abandoned their idea on Jan. 31, 1922.

Despite not having a place to call home, members of the club continued to use Kirby Park to ride their horses through the 1930s.