Keeping cool in Raleigh city pools

photographs by Tim Lytveninko

The history of public pools here is a rich one, spanning more than a century, and reflecting all of the social and economic changes of the times. In 1891, Richard Stanhope Pullen built Raleigh’s first public pool at Pullen Park, the land for which he’d donated to the city four years earlier, creating the state’s first public park. The pool he made of wood there was reserved exclusively for men, but in 1895, an adjacent pool was opened for women and girls. This and subsequent public pools were segregated by race until the early 1960s.

Today all of our pools offer all of us the chance to take a break not only from the heat, but from the rush of our days. WALTER asked photographer Tim Lytvinenko to capture some of that summer joy for our August pages.