The 1-acre (0.40ha) park contains several buildings used by various city government divisions, most notably the Chehalis Parks and Recreation Department, and serves as a command center during city emergencies.[1]
History
City government buildings, pumphouse, and "clump of trees", 2022
The plat for Henderson Park, described as featuring a "pretty clump of trees," was originally offered to the city in 1906.[2] The land was officially donated to Chehalis by the Henderson Lumber Company in 1908 but forgotten by the city until 1913, though the area was treated as a park by local residents.[3][4] The park was not formally recognized by the city until 1916.[5] Full ownership was given to Chehalis, by deed, in 1962.[6]
During its early history, the grounds served as an automobile stop, marketplace, picnic area, and playground.[7] At the end of 1916, the city commissioners, led by the actions of a local auto club, began to convert the land into a park for automobile travelers.[8] The grounds were slightly expanded in 1923 when the city authorized the purchase of nearby residential lots to add to the park.[9] Improvements, actual and planned, were begun in the mid-1920s and into the 1930s, first with a concrete concession stand in 1924[10] and the planting of Hawthorne trees the following year.[11] A log lodge, with an original footprint of 28ft ×72ft (8.5m ×21.9m), was introduced as a possible rest area for travelers in 1933. The lodge was planned to be modern for the times and was to contain a dance floor and host a large front porch. The combination rest area and recreation building was never constructed.[12][13]
Henderson Park, along with other recreation spots in the city, received a small Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant for improvements and the addition of playground equipment in 1937.[14][15] In early 1938, the Henderson Park Garden Club was first organized.[16] By the 1940s, the space began to be primarily utilized for the State Department of Natural Resources and then later by the Chehalis fire department and the Jaycees.[7][17]
A crab apple tree known as the Saunders Tree was replanted at Henderson Park in early 1968. Originally located at Market and 4th Street, the tree grew from a graft made in 1870 by an unnamed Native American boy and Joseph Saunders, the youngest son of the city’s founding family. Due to a widening project on Market Street, a move of the tree was necessitated. The tree thrived at first but there was a lack of fruit and leaf growth as the summer season passed.[18] The pioneer tree, most likely part of the Saunder's family orchard on the Hillside Historic District, was reported to have died a year or two later. Cuttings were taken and planted at the Chehalis park system's office.[19]
Rose bushes were dispersed through the site during a transfer of plantings from the closure of the Chehalis Municipal Rose Garden but the roses did not flourish.[1] Beginning in 2009 as an offshoot of the city's Christmas decorations, the park's pump house is dressed by volunteers as a gingerbread house during the winter holiday season.[20]
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