The "swimming tank" at the Algiers Playground, built at a cost of about $4000, was the first public swimming pool operated by the Commission. The playground, which opened on October 1, 1913, was located at Opelousas and Seguin on a site previously occupied by a private cemetery on the Villere-Duverje estate. In order to build the park, the remains were moved to Metairie Cemetery.

The Commission did not build another pool until 1920, when the St. Roch pool opened. The 1920 Yearbook reports that to prepare for the swim meets held that year, the Cleveland Playground boys swam in the New Basin Canal and the boys from the Clay Playground (which had opened in 1913) in the Mississippi River.

[Yearbook, Playgrounds Commission, 1917]

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