History of Goudy Park

The Wayne Waterworks filtration building, 1914.

With all the excitement around the opening of the new Goudy Park performance area, let’s take a look back at the history of the park. Ever since the 1870s the plot of land has been laid out into house lots, but due to the area being low and flooding often no houses were ever built. It was part of Jeremiah O’Connor’s land holdings, he owned basically everything North of Michigan from Howe to Wayne Road up to Glenwood. (He donated land for St. Mary’s Church and Cemetery and helped found the Catholic Church in Wayne).
In the early days because the land was just a wooded hilly dropoff to the river, it was used as a dumping ground, with people just throwing their garbage over the edge. In 1912 it is noted that there was a creamery and icehouse on the site, owned by John Murphy, about the place of the pump house refreshment stand today. The creamery would have bottled and delivered milk to homes in Wayne. It appears sometime around this date the Village purchased the land and it would become “Waterworks Park”.
A dam was built across the Rouge and an open reservoir was dug to supply Wayne’s first water system. A large filtration and pump house was built, and water lines were laid all across town. This was also the time the department of public works was established, and a man named Charles Goudy was hired as its first head. Goudy was already the fire chief, so in addition to DPW he also was a town marshall, street, building and plumbing inspector, and water bill collector. The old creamery buildings would serve as the first DPW offices into the 1930s.
In 1929 a huge underground concrete reservoir was constructed to store more water for the growing Village. Because Goudy’s offices were on site, he began to beautify the grounds by planting trees and flowers. This was the first time the area was considered a “park”. When the parks department was created in 1937 they decided to name this first park “Goudy Park” after all the work Charles had done to beautify it. Charles Goudy is said to have said “Humph!” when he first heard about the name change, so it’s unclear if he approved. He passed away the following year in 1938.
In 1939 the Wayne Waterworks was shut down when we connected to Detroit City Water. The old filtration plant was said to have briefly housed a pet alligator that Mr. Henry Timmerman remembers seeing as a child. The old underground reservoir had tennis courts built on it, and it would be flooded on top for ice skating in winter. In 1945 a new parks department recreation building was built on site as part of the war effort. After many years of use it would be converted into the current city hall in the late 80s. In the 50s the city intended for all city buildings to be grouped around Goudy Park, so a new library, police station and Water Board building were built along Sims. The library would become the Senior center, then be sold off, the police station torn down, and the Water building became City Hall, and presently the Court building.
In 1992 a new $500,000 round amphitheater was built in the park that could seat 600. This venue was used for summer concerts through 2024 when it was removed for the present one. The old dam was removed in 2013, restoring natural flow to the river. Goudy Park is always changing, who knows what’s on the horizon.