Despite its celebrated place in the American imagination, the backyard pool as both object and technology has largely gone unexamined by historians.

In this paper, we begin to remedy that gap, tracing its explosive rise back to 1940s Southern California. From there, we examine the various technological, economic, and architectural forces that guided its journey from plaything of the rich to banal accoutrement of backyards across the Southern Californian suburbs.

But as quickly as they appeared, pools morphed into something new, and wholly unexpected: spaces for skateboarding. As many pools were drained due to drought, water levels receded to reveal smooth walls and curves that were perfect for skating on, launching skateboarding into a new era. Additional technological advancements in truck and wheel design allowed skaters to take advantage of these gunite surfaces, whose popularity would in turn influence the construction of skateparks around the country and cause participation in the sport to explode.

Drawing from both historical and architectural sources, we argue that the technological advancement of these 2 sports was brought about not just by inventors but by individuals adapting existing technology to new sportive purposes.

…The Invention of Gunite: Perhaps the individual most important to the spread of Southern California swimming pools was, surprisingly, an east coast taxidermist now buried in the Congo. Carl Akeley, considered the father of modern taxidermy, is also responsible for the creation of gunite, a construction technique that made pools much less expensive to build. Gunite is a system of applying concrete, delivered as a spray though a pressurized hose onto rebar. Submitted to the US Department of the Interior’s Patent Office in September 1909 and officially patented in May 1911, gunite was the result of the evolution of a tool Akeley had created for his taxidermy work, ’an enlarged atomizer… that used compressed air to spray on colored plaster of paris.’¹² Frederick Skiff, the director of the Field Columbian Museum, where Akeley worked at the time, encouraged him to improve the plaster-gun so it could be used to recoat the fading façade of the building [built for the Columbian Exposition]. After a few months of tinkering, Akeley managed just that, never imagining the many sporting uses his new technology would eventually be applied to.

…This connection, however, was not made until 1938, with the patent filed by Frank F. Beeby, who was an employee of Taylor’s Cement Gun Company. Up until this point, pools had been built mostly out of stone or marble, as concrete was not strong enough to support the walls. As Beeby explains the problem, ‘the construction of such a pool was usually a very expensive operation in that the side and end walls were heavy retaining walls to support the pressure of the adjacent earth and these retaining walls were of considerable depth.’¹³ Gunite solved these problems by having the strength to support the weight at only a few inches thick, making pools much less costly to build. Additionally, gunite allowed pools to be constructed in any shape, limited only by imagination. Whereas previously pools were all corners, flat surfaces, and right angles, now they could bend and curve to your heart’s desire (Figure 2)

Paddock Engineering Co. was the major player in California pool construction in the early days. Founder Pascall Paddock began his career as a masonry contractor building custom pools for movie stars in the 1920s–1930s.¹⁴ Then, each pool was a massive undertaking, as they were normally dug by hand and so were incredibly expensive—$61,884.5^$5,000₁₉₂₀–$123,768.99^$10,000₁₉₂₀ in 1920s dollars. At the time, maybe 20 new pools were being dug each year.¹⁵ Being one of the only firms in a nascent industry, Paddock Engineering was well positioned to capture much of the business when middle and upper-middle class people began to build their own pools. Paddock was always experimenting, seeking out ways to improve his pools and decrease costs. He pioneered the use of single-shell pools and plaster to prevent leakages at seams. So, it makes sense that his company would experiment with gunite, discovering its usefulness for pool construction. As early as 1940, then-president Phillip Ilsley (who had bought Paddock’s company from him) praised the impact of gunite, saying that “Our improved methods of construction have really brought swimming pools within reach of everybody.”¹⁶ Ilsley was an artist and architect who had previously designed river-pools, using plants to disguise the flat walls and sharp corners.¹⁷ He was also a believer in the virtues of concrete, commissioning a house built entirely out of it.¹⁸ Given these interests, he was clearly drawn to gunite and its vast untapped potential in pool construction. The first such pool was built in either 1938 or 1939.¹⁹

The Pool Boom: Gunite caused the price of pools to plummet. By 1950, a sizeable 34 × 16ft pool could be had for just $19,855.18^$2,000₁₉₅₀ in 1950s dollars.²⁰ This means that, when accounting for inflation, prices had been slashed by about 80% in real dollars from 3 decades earlier. But other factors contributed to the pool construction boom as well. Over time, technological advances for filters and chemical balancing made pools both less costly and less time-intensive to maintain.²¹ Additionally, the 1950s brought about the reclassification of pools as ‘home improvements’, meaning they were eligible for bank financing for the first time. This helped open the floodgates, letting more people purchase pools than just those that could pay up front in full. By 1958, ’more than 2⁄3^rds of all residential pools built in the United States were financed through banks or mortgage and loan companies.’²² One 1961 Times article, citing the National Swimming Pool Institute, claimed that Californians could buy pools for 3⁄4^th the price paid by the rest of the country, as the competitive market depressed prices. Builders could keep their own costs down, too, as the mild winters meant pool walls didn’t need to be as thick as they did in the North and East parts of the country. The article explained that as a result, over a third of the nation’s 290,000 pools were in-state.

In 1960, the Los Angeles region accounted for 20% of all newly installed pools in the entire country.²⁴ 3 years later, the number of pools had exploded to almost 150,000 in California alone, with 3⁄5^ths of all new pools being installed in the southern part of the state.²⁵ At 19,000 pools annually and growing, Southern California was building more, faster than anywhere else. One pool contractor summed up the sunny outlook of this now billion-dollar industry for both buyers and sellers:

Thus, the adoption of gunite—along with evolving bank lending rules—resulted in an incredibly rapid expansion of pool construction. In the 2 decades 1940^–₂₀1960_64ya, pools transformed from luxury good to common household item in Southern California. New installations would peak in 1964, with numbers only slightly off that through the rest of the decade.²⁷

…While street skating still reigns supreme, the legacies of the pool-era live on in the sport’s constructed landscapes of the 21^st century. Many contemporary skateboard parks still feature bowls and pool inspired designs (though they are not made of gunite), as did the terrain for the first Olympic skateboard competitions at the Tokyo Olympic games. 1970s pool skating remains a touchstone of vintage skateboarding and California culture. It is a touchstone that now effectively transcends time and space as photographer and urban theorist Dwayne Dixon chronicles in an article on skateboarding and visual culture in Japan:

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