Enumclaw's pool is a 1968 King County vote that never went away

The town's stadium is named after a swimming pool that no longer exists. The town's actual swimming pool has no name to speak of, sits on school district land on Semanski Street, and has been quietly kept alive by four different pots of money since a vote most of its swimmers were not born for.

This is that pool's story. It is also the story of what happens when a county builds something in a small town and then changes its mind.

Forward Thrust

On February 13, 1968, King County voters went to the polls on twelve bond propositions under a banner called Forward Thrust. Proposition 6, a $118 million parks measure, passed with 64.7 percent, and it paid for 260 projects across the county, including six new swimming pools at $452,675 apiece in Shoreline, Lake Washington, Bellevue, Renton, Federal Way and Highline, plus $221,000 for the Enumclaw golf course and $157,500 for Enumclaw park improvements.

Enumclaw's pool was built in the early 1970s and, by the Courier-Herald's account, it was Forward Thrust money that built it. The six pools named in the 1968 summary do not include it, so it came through a later round or a broader line, and the exact entry was not found for this piece. What is not in doubt is the ownership. It was the county's pool, on a county program, run by county staff.

The county changes its mind

By 2002 King County was looking at a $50 million shortfall in its 2003 budget and another $30 million the year after. It closed twenty parks that February. In May the Seattle Times reported that all sixteen county pools, the Forward Thrust pools, could close by November. Issaquah and Bellevue had already taken theirs. Everyone else was told, in effect, to take theirs or lose them.

The county offered the pool to the city. Enumclaw took it, in 2003 by the one account that gives a year.

Four ways to pay for water

A pool is, in the words of one swimming official quoted that year, basically a money drain. The city's two decades and more of ownership are a record of finding things to pour into it.

First, voters. In 2003 Enumclaw passed a levy to support pool operations.

Second, golf. From 2002 to 2008 the golf course, the county's at first and then the city's, made money, about $115,000 in 2002 alone, while the pool lost between $150,000 and $180,000, and the course's revenue helped cover the difference.

Third, the general fund. When golf revenue thinned after 2008, the pool moved onto the same budget as the streets. By 2017 what the pool needed exceeded what the levy raised.

Fourth, the county again, in a smaller way. When the city finally rebuilt the front of the building, King County paid half.

The report

In January 2018 a California firm, Aquatic Commercial Consulting, delivered its assessment. Its consultant, Richard Young, found $463,000 of repairs and improvements: $235,000 to replace the pool deck, $134,000 for the tank, and the rest in dressing rooms, lockers and plumbing. The pool was more than four decades old.

Mayor Jan Molinaro formed a citizens' committee, five to seven residents, to report by the end of that summer for the 2019 budget.

What got built

Two rounds of work followed. In 2020 the city repaired the deck, put in a new liner, added ADA lifts, and hung a climbing wall over the water, which the architects who later drew the expansion describe as the first of its kind approved in King County.

The bigger project came with a $1.2 million grant for a first phase: a new entry and lobby, the old restrooms turned into family changing rooms, and a community room for rentals. The project came to about $2.1 million, half of it from King County; a new roof went on at the same time as a separate job. The ribbon was cut on March 24, 2025, a few months after most construction finished, because, as parks director Alina Hibbs put it, nobody wanted a ceremony while the sheet metal crew was still there. Some of what is behind the scenes, she said, is still original.

The drawings for what comes next exist: a splash pad, a leisure pool, a therapy pool, a spa, a sauna and a steam room, and a mezzanine to watch it all from. None of it has a funding source that this piece could find.

What it is today

The Enumclaw Aquatic Center, 420 Semanski Street South, open 82 hours a week year round: from six in the morning on weekdays, to eight most nights, and mornings and evenings on Saturday. Swim lessons, lifeguard courses, a climbing wall over the water, and the new community room, capacity 46; the city's page carries the rest of the list. The aquatics supervisor is Suzy Holston, 360-615-5681.

It is not glamorous. It is a 1970s county pool that a town of twelve thousand has paid for four separate ways, and it is the only indoor pool the town has.

The pattern

The fairgrounds, the golf course, the pool: King County held them when it had money and a plan, and handed each to Enumclaw when it did not. In every case the town kept the thing open. In every case the bill kept coming.

The next time a regional government offers Enumclaw a gift, the history says two things. Take it. And read the maintenance schedule first.

The thing to book

Fees are in the city's 2026 schedule, linked from the aquatic center page. Lesson registration opens online during posted windows. The climbing wall is the thing to see, and the community room is the thing to book, because for the first time in fifty years the building has somewhere dry to hold a birthday.