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A March 20, 1952 "Southwestern Times" newspaper article reports Ham(ilton) and Margaret Anderson and Les(ter H.) Oldfield building a pool at 8510 S Main in 1952 "behind ... Gateway Skating Rink." (You can see the pool & skating rink in the 1953 aerial photos to 1995. I am not sure if the concrete is still there.) All were former AAU swimmers. I know Les was a national-level backstroker. Apparently Les was a subject of KPRC's "Eyes of Texas" Oct. 8, 1983. The Andersons built swim pools and used the name of "Crystal Pools". Les used the name "Gateway". I believe that sometime around the mid 1950s, the Andersons & Les split. Crystal Club of Houston was an AAU swim team that worked out in the backyard pool (with an underwater window) at the Andersons' house (Bellaire?) after that. I learned to swim at Gateway 1954-1956. Around 1957, the team used another facility under coach Milton Davis (swimming, diving, trampoline). Around 1958, Milton left for Nashville(IIRC), being replaced by Don Buell. Somewhere around 1959, the team parted from the Andersons, becoming the Houston Dolphins. The Dolphins practiced at a number of facilities (Gateway outdoor & indoor pools, Meyerland Pool, Johnston Jr. High). The Gateway skating rink (a separate building, closer to Main St, but adjacent to the same (HOT tar!) parking lot as Gateway pool) was converted to an indoor pool circa 1963. The pool was 15' deep in the deep end, with two 1 meter and one 3 meter diving boards. The shallow end was 2.5 feet deep. Great for teaching kids to swim but really tough to learn to do flip turns in. (Before flip turns, there were spin turns which it was ok for. But backstroke flips were dangerous.) Besides the "bubble" (a dome from a plane) in the deep end, the pool sported a very tall (20' ?) straight slide on the northeast side, approximately in the middle of the pool (I'd guess it was about 4' deep there.) The end of the slide can be seen protruding into the pool in the aerial views. There were two(?) trampolines in the east corner of the pool grounds. Tether ball was also a favorite. The AquaBobber (visible opposite the slide in 1964 but not 1962) was a approximately 7' spherical metal float with a approximately 10' crows nest above it. (Sizes from my guessing based on a 50-year old memory.) The float was anchored by chains to the bottom of the pool. The idea was that it was an upside-down swing. You used your body weight to swing the bobber back and forth. As I understood it, originally there was too little (concrete) ballast in the float resulting in very dramatic swings of 180 degrees (water to water) or more. Extra concrete was added, giving it more momentum, and making it more difficult to achieve as large a range of motion. One could still get your hand into the water, but getting your body in was very difficult, and would probably get you kicked out. Jumping or falling out of the crow's nest would definitely result in an ejection. The pool usually opened for the season just before Memorial Day and closed after Labor Day (school ended just after Memorial Day and started around Labor Day). July 4th was a big day at the pool with kids diving for coins thrown into the shallow end, and watermelon scrambles in the deep end. I remember a Mother-Son race that my mother & I participated in. (The bulkhead was in, resulting in a 20 or 25yd course for that event.) I recall the 3 major holidays often sported clown diving, with Les as one of the clown divers. Personally, I think wide spread adoption of air conditioning contributed to the declining patronage of the pool. Before A/C, going to the pool was a respite from the sweltering heat of Houston in the summer. I know Les was losing money everyday for the last several years. Just imagine the water loss due to evaporation, and the amount of chemicals required to keep the pool clean & safe, plus the electricity to circulate the water and pump it through the filters. Overnight, water hoses snaked out in the pool to help stir up any dirt on the bottom. Although I must have swum there 2000 days, I rarely remember the pool as being closed or ever being too chlorinated or otherwise dirty. (I had an early summer birthday & had several adolescent birthday parties there.) Gateway Pool was a grand place for its time. It was sad to see it go the way of the Hula Hoop.