Lily Pond

One of City Park’s most famous features was the Lily Pond. Originally the park held two such ponds, but these days only the larger three and a half acre pond remains. Lily ponds were a landscape architecture mainstay in the early twentieth century. They were typically included in private estates, museums, and public parks. Such features were prized for their annual blooming of brightly colored water lilies. City Park’s pond was the largest artificial lily pond in the world when it was completed in the early 1900s. However, the lilies themselves were removed around 1980. In addition to being historically significant in its own right, the Lily Pond was also the site of a historical event. In 1913, pilot Morris Priest crashed an early Wright Brothers plane into the water feature. Priest had planned to give airplane rides to local residents when equipment failed during an initial test flight. Several Wright Brothers test flights had already taken place in Parkersburg, possibly due to the fact that the brother’s preferred building material was West Virginia spruce. The plane was retrieved from the pond by local residents, though it was completely totaled. Priest suffered no serious injuries.