Swimming in the Crick

Submitted by: Dave Bartens


Swimming in the creek or as they say in West Virginia "crick" was a big summertime aggravation for our 1950's & 60's mothers who had young boys and lived anywhere near Wheeling Creek. I can still hear my mom lecturing me about ruining all our underwear by wearing them in the crick. "What are you going to do if you get in an accident and have to go to the hospital? You don't want to be seen wearing brown underwear like that, do you?" Finally she just gave in like all East Wheeling moms did. By summer's end all our snow white BVD's and tee shirts would be a nice shade of "crick brown". When the new school year kicked off, you could definitely tell which boys were from East Wheeling by all those brown tee shirts. It was like showing off the East Wheeling "colors".

We really did spend a lot of time in the crick in the summertime. Whenever it would get hot that's where you'd find us during the hottest part of the day. It was what we did in Goosetown as little kids. We always had to sneak because our parents were afraid that we'd drown down there in the crick. It was just something that we did as teenagers living in Goosetown. It was something that I don't remember growing out of. We were still crick swimming and bridge diving right up to the time we were all drafted into the military. It was just a lot of fun.

We would swim the crick at a moments notice so swimming suits were out of the question. Just strip down to our skivies and jump into that cool water was how we would spend our afternoons. If the crick was running clear...we swam in it. If it was muddy....we still swam in it, it just didn't matter. Even if the crick was crystal clear when we "went in" we'd end up mudding it all up anyway by stirring up the sediment on the bottom, always came out with the same result: Brown Underwear.

I still remember all the places where we used to swim: The Goosetown Trussell, along the Goosetown dump, Berry's Hole, Lindsley Wall, The Mouth where Wheeling Crick met the Ohio RIver and the Ohio RIver itself. Most all the swimming holes were in very overgrown and secluded places. At Berry's Hole and along the Goosetown Crick, it was very wooded. What was not blocked off by trees was made totally private by the dense milkweed that grew 7 or 8 feet tall all along the crick during the summer. I remember we had to cut paths through it, sometimes for 40 or 50 yards or more just to get to the crick. We'd also cut paths to secret little hideaways back in amongst the milkweed when we wanted to hide especially if we were skipping school that day. Great memories.

There weren't many good swimmers or divers amongst us guys. I was definetely not one of the good ones. One of us was better than the rest, he could hold his own on the high dives at Wheeling Park and Oglebay and knew the proper technique, the rest of us had no technique at all. We could stay afloat and get where we wanted to go...but it wasn't pretty. This was also true of our diving ability, lots of sore heads and bellies and arms that almost flung out of their shoulder socket by hitting the water the wrong way.

Berry's Hole was probably the best swimming hole around. To get there from East Wheeling you had to walk the railroad tracks through Goosetown Tunnel. The hills and crick areas on both sides of the tunnel were wild and overgrown. It was like a jungle... especially on the Fulton side. Once you got through the tunnel, you turned left on a path that led over to the bank above the crick. There was an old and overgrown Blaw Knox railway spur that you had to follow a little way and cross to get to the hill above the crick. The railway hadn't been used in quite some time and had trees growing up in the middle of the tracks. Anyway, from there you followed a path that led down the bank to the crick and Berry's Hole.

Getting to Berry's Hole from Fulton was simple. Fulton Playround was located just off Fulton Street, across from Fulton School. It was a large ballfield and palyground that went almost to the crick. I think that there's a trucking company there now. Anyway, from the playground there was a path through the trees and milkweed that would get you to the crick. Berry's Hole was just across the crick, that's where the deep hole was located.

Berry's had a fairly deep swimming hole that was about 5 or 6 feet deep on the hill side of the crick. It was very shallow and muddly on the Fulton Playground side. If you walked in for the Fulton side you usually had to tread through some muck until the water got deep enough to swim in. On the deep side, the water was always clear because of all the springs that were feeding the crick on that side. Those springs were really cold and it was very refreshing during the hottest days of summer. Along the bank on the deep side was a big flat rock formation that extended a foot or two out into the deep water from the bank. The path from the railway track ran down the hill and dead-ended at that big rock. It was a great place to dive from. There was also an oblong rock formation that protruded out over one side of the big flat rock, a couple of feet up the hill, that too was a great diving platform.

Berry's Hole greatest claim to fame wasn't it's rock formations, it was the rope swing. It was awesome..a world class crick swing. Forty to fifty feet up the hill side, above the crick, were huge oak trees..with very large branches that extended partially out over the crick. Someone, in the past had climbed up one of those oaks and tied a large industrial strength rope around one of those big branches. I always wondered who had the courage to climb out on that limb to attach that rope. It was really scary. The end of the rope almost reached the crick and had a large know tied on the end that was used as a seat. The knot probably hung three to four feet above the waterline, just low enough to be able to reach up and grab it from the crick bank. The idea was to grab the knot and climb up the hill to a fairly level landing way up the bank. As you climbed up the path you got some slack in the rope, but not enough where you could actually sit on the knot from the landing. You had to grab the rope, Tarzan style, and start swinging, put your legs around the rope and sit on the knot. It was really exciting. The swing would take you way high and out over the middle of the crick. When you reached zero gravity at the swing's highest point, you pushed the knot from between your legs and kinda hung there for a second... and then formed your dive into the crick. Man, that was really a lot of fun.