The City of Fayette has been awarded a grant to help cover the costs of updating a feasibility study for the historic Fayette Memorial Swimming Pool. The 60/40 grant was actually received in February, but the COVID-19 pandemic effectively put everything on hold. Pam Huttsell, from the group Friends of the Historic Fayette Memorial Pool, explained the grant to the Fayette City Council at its regular meeting on June 2.

The group’s mission is to partner with the City of Fayette to raise money to preserve, renovate, upgrade, and continue maintenance of the Fayette City Pool.

The grant will provide an update for an extensive feasibility study conducted in 2002. The cost to update the study is expected to be $10,000. Fayette had budgeted $4,000 to put toward the updated study.

The study will provide cost updates to the larger 2002 study. The grant will help cover the expense of hiring an engineering firm to examine the condition of the structure and provide updated cost estimates on recommendations for improvements, such as concrete work and window replacement. The updated study would also qualify the city to apply for grants to help make improvements to the pool.

Debbie Sheals, a professional historic preservation consultant from Columbia, prepared the grant application for Fayette, at a cost of $1,000, which was paid for by the Friends of the Historic Fayette Memorial Pool. Sheals has prior experience with Fayette in past years and is responsible for having the pool placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“If not for her it would have been difficult to get this grant,” Huttsell told the council.

The updated study should be completed by the fall of 2021.

The pool opened on July 4 of 1936. It is example of small scale Depression-era civic architecture. It was funded by the City of Fayette, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Howard County, and the state of Missouri. Designed by Wesley Bintz of Lansing, Michigan, it is one of the few surviving above-ground pools left in the nation. The “head house” or entrance hall of the building serves as a memorial to those who fought in World War I. There is a large bronze plaque still in the ground floor entrance room which commemorates area soldiers who served in “the Great War.”