In 1891, John C. Nye had plans for a park that would attract large crowds of people willing to pay admission to attractions that would be scheduled. With this in mind, he commissioned his father, Cyrus Nye, to build a pavilion for public use. It was intended to seat more than Vurpillat’s meeting place.

From the local paper at the time: “J.C. Nye has received plans and specifications for his new park building on the peninsula, and as soon as the weather permits work on it will begin. It will be octagonal in shape, forty-five feet in diameter, with a large stage at one side in addition. It will be sixteen feet high, with an arched ceiling.”

The Pulaski County Teacher’s Institute was the first to meet there, and after then came band concerts, dances, Sunday schools and political conventions.

During the summer months it was the coolest place in town and in great demand.

When John Nye sold the park in 1908, the new owner intended to move the pavilion to his farm, but this disaster was averted by the Winamac Park Association, a group quickly formed to rescue the peninsula and all its attractions from destruction.

The pavilion continued to be a popular place and was in constant use for decades. Time and the river began to take its toll and in 1990, the nearly one hundred-year-old building was condemned and was to be torn down.

Enough people remembered its glory days to want to save it. Nearly a foot of insect-infested and rotted wood was cut off the bottom and it was moved to the other side of the park. It has been listed as Pulaski County’s only round barn, even though it is not exactly round and was never used as a barn. It did, however, come very close to being a granary.

All Tour Stops

YOU BEGAN THE TOUR ON THIS PAGE

1. 1. First Brick Block Building in Winamac
   2. Courthouse (1894-95)
      • Sculpture: The Teacher
      • Original Survey Marker
      • Time Capsules
      • War Memorials
   3. Vurpillat’s Opera House (1883)
   4. Winamac Freight Depot
   5. Panhandle Pathway
   6. St. Peter Catholic Church
   7. Location of First Frame House
   8. First United Methodist Church (1901)
   9. ISIS Theatre (1936)
   10. Pulaski County Public Library (a Carnegie library, 1916)
   11. Log Cabin Replica
   12. Artesian Well (1887)
   13. Memorial Swinging Bridge (1923)
   14. Winamac Town Park (former hunting and fishing ground of the Potawatomi)
   15. Park Pavilion (1891)
   16. Kelly Hardware (1898)

You’re back where you started!