"The Water's Always Great in Your Own Backyard!"

Integration of public swimming pools coincided with the boom in backyard residential pools. In May of 1966, the year that McKinley Pool was opened, Kobacker's in Portsmouth advertised above-ground pools, claiming "The Water's Always Great in Your Own Backyard." In 1950, according to Jeff Wiltse's book, Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America, only 2,500 American families owned in-ground pools as compared to 4 million by 1999.