Cypress Park and Recreation Center

Cypress Park and Recreation Center

981 George W. Engram Boulevard

Opened in 1929, Cypress Street Park gave the Black community a place to play, congregate and celebrate together - something they weren’t allowed to do outside of their neighborhoods.

The park’s history is woven with the memories of Black leaders who created community in the segregated society by caring for others. Josie Queen James, a kindergarten school founder and teacher, Le Rosa Smith (1918-2003) the first Black female assistant superintendent and a trailblazer in the integration of Volusia County Schools and others watched over the children and served as role models. Eddie Hill played and taught music to children in the community, providing cultural enrichment. Dr. John T. Stocking provided medical care to the Black community and when he married Daisy Hardy (Stocking) in 1918, she joined him, after serving the prior two years as supervisor at McLeod Hospital on the campus of Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute (now Bethune-Cookman University). Their daughter Evelyn Stocking Crosslin (1919-1991), and Evelyn’s husband Dr. Neil O. Crosslin, opened one of the first healthcare centers in Midtown in the 1940s, extending essential medical services to an underserved area. Cypress Street Park was a focal point of the community and the adults who passed through it played a significant role in the lives of several generations of children.

Cypress pool, built in 1942, was the only public pool in Volusia County where Blacks could swim. In 1946, the park served as a spring training practice field for baseball’s minor-league Montreal Royals, including a promising rookie named Jackie Robinson. In 1949, a recreation hall was built at the park specifically for Blacks — so that the new Peabody Auditorium on the beachside could be reserved for whites.

Timeline

1929 - Park Opens for Black Community

1942 - Pool Opens – only pool for Blacks in Volusia County

1946 - Jackie Robinson practices at Kelly Field

1949 - Recreation Center Opens – as separate but equal facility

1952 - Court ruled Blacks had to be admitted to Peabody Auditorium

2012 - City built a new recreation center

Cypress Aquatic Center

For information about the aquatic center, visit this website.