The History of Swimming Pools
I suppose the best start to a Swimming pool blog would be the history of the "pool" itself.
In modern day it's estimated that there are roughly 10.4 million residential pools in the United States alone, with an additional 310,000 commercially operated pools.
It's common belief that the earliest known pool was in Pakistan. It's known as the "Great Bath" and dates back to almost 3000 BC!
The pool was approximately 39 long feet by 23 feet wide and reached a depth of almost 8 feet deep.
There were also swimming pools in Roman times where Emperors also kept fish. "Piscina" is one of the latin words for pool. Somewhere in the first century BC, Gaius Maecenas of Rome had commissioned one of the first known "heated" pools.
Between the 6th and 8th century BC, n the 6th to 8th Century BC, the Greeks had rooms where they would go to play ball games, practice fighting and wrestling, and other various exercises. In those areas were also pools for social events, as well as bathing and swimming.
In 2500 BC, there are also historic records of swimming pools in Assyria and Egypt.
Just short of 300 AD, the Romans commanded an absolutely amazing pool with a footprint of over 900,000 square feet!
It included large underground fires beneath the floors of the pool to heat the water, and was used mainly for public bathing.
In about 36 AD, there are records of swimming competitions described in historic Japanese records.
Britain was introduced to swimming as a social event by Romans as early as 78 AD.
Jump to more modern times...
In the very early to mid 1800's Sweden and Germany show records of the development of "Acrobatic" swimming, swimming "Clubs" were established in England, as well as England documenting the most likely first "indoor swimming pool".
1885 saw the first recorded "diving competition" in Germany.
One of the first known public pools in modern times in the U.S. was built in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1887.
In 1895, the Vanderbuilt Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, shows one of the earliest known private residential pools in the U.S.
In 1907, the first known swimming pool in an ocean liner was built by White Star in a ship called "Adriatic".
In 1910, the Edisons followed in the way of the Vanderbuilts and also built a private residential pool.
The following year saw the founding of the first known governing body of pools known as FINA (Federation Internationale de Nation de Amateur).
By 1912 the Stockholm Sweden Olympics had added Women's Swimming to it's list of events.
It wasn't until the 1930's that hotels had begun using pools as "marketing tools".
In Coral Gables, Florida, the Biltmore Hotel was one of the first hotels in the United States to market a pool as an amenity. It drew in HUGE Hollywood stars from the times such as Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, and Bing Crosby to name just a few.
This is also the decade that saw the earliest known pools formed from steel wire for strength before hand packing cement walls.
Into the 1940's other hotels followed suit and it's then that the first "Gunite" pool is
"spray applied" using compressed air with material sprayed onto form boards to creat the shape. Towards the end of the 1940's is when the Gunite industry began to grow. Unfortunately World War II halted the industry to a crawl.
Gunite is still used today in modern pool construction.
The late 1940's showed the first of the large pool building companies.
In the 1950's after the Korean War, pool construction saw a large upswing.
Pool companies were popping up throughout Florida, Texas, New York, and predominantly throughout California.
The National Pool and Spa Institute was formed to help unify standards in the pool industry in response to pool issues.
Vinyl liner pools debuted towards the end of the 1950's as well as solid one piece fiberglass pools.
It was also around that time that the concept of "pool financing" blossomed.
Into the 1960's, filtration equipment became available, and PVC plumbing, skimmers, pool drains, and pool lighting.
Perhaps the biggest introduction to the pool industry in the 60's was the "free formed" pool as opposed to the typical rectangular pool that preceded it.
Califonia blazed the pool industry trail through the 1970's with Gunite pools being formed and sprayed into custom shapes and sizes. These were the first of what has been considered "high quality custom pools".
In the 70's California experienced severe droughts which forced the emptying of tons of pools.
...Thus the skating/skateboarding industry started to blow up.
The 1980's ushered in new materials and new shapes and water features as well as early pool "Automation" controls.
"Natural Look" pools started to grow in popularity as well as overflowing walls known as "vanishing" or "negative" edge pools where water seemingly flows over the edge of the pool into nowhere.
It wasn't until the 1990's that SAFETY finally became an important issue.
With the introduction of "baby gates", stricter fencing regulations, and better designed automation.
Today...in the future of now...there are pumps that instantly halt entrapment issues, drain covers that are anti-vortex, and automation that sends immediate alerts to your smart device if someone or something even breaks a pool's surface.
With almost unlimited sizes, shapes, and building materials, incredibly complex automations controls, and quickly advancing technology, who knows where the pool industry will progress.
At this point it seems limited only by the imagination.
