Located at the end of Main Street and across from Veterans Memorial Park is a very small park called Kiwanis Falls Park. This park was dedicated by then-Kiwanis member, Keith Cobo, on Aug. 16th, 1980 as a gift to the city. This park originally had a fake waterfall that welcomed visitors and helped to answer the oft-asked question, "Where are the falls?"
Unfortunately, this city symbol fell into constant disrepair and after the City of Klamath took over ownership and maintenance of this park, decided to remove the waterfall mechanics, thus leaving the city without a 'falls'.
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Published December 16, 2005
By ANGELA TORRETTA, H&N Staff Writer
It may be time for a city name change. As of next year, Klamath Falls no longer will have a waterfall.
The man-made Kiwanis Waterfall Park near the west end of Main Street will be torn out and replaced with a lower maintenance park area.
The waterfall was built on property donated by Kiwanis member Keith Cobo and dedicated in the summer of 1980.
According to current accounts from Kiwanis members, Cobo told people he wanted to have a waterfall to give a ring of truth to the name "Klamath Falls.”
The town lost its waterfalls on Link River when the river was dammed, but those were always more like a series of cascades than a real waterfall.
The artificial waterfall started having problems, though, and was a popular target for vandals, who liked to dump soap into it to create a frothy mist of bubbles.
The waterfall, ever since it has been built, has been a maintenance problem,” said Klamath Falls City Manager Jeff Ball.
Andy Swanson is the director of the Klamath County Library and a Kiwanis member. He said it was a hard decision for the civic club to make, but in the end the members agreed it was necessary.
It was kind of becoming a joke,” Swanson said.
The club turned the waterfall over to the city about two years ago, but maintenance problems continued to plague it and the fountain was rarely on.
Just one thing after another was wrong with it,” said Bob Tucker, a Kiwanis member who obtained a $5,000 grant from the city's Cogen power plant funds to help pay for the waterfall's removal.
He estimates the club will still need to come up with another $5,000 to complete the work.
Tucker and Swanson got estimates that put the cost of fixing the waterfall at $30,000 to $50,000.
In the end, though, it wasn't the money that kept the club from fixing the falls.
Between liability worries and paying for falls that only ran for a fraction of the year, it just wasn't worth it.
It was a lot of soul searching,” Swanson said.
Kiwanis members hope to see the park transformed into something useful and easier to maintain. Engineering students from the Oregon Institute of Technology have been brought on board to help. They're planning the design of the tiny park - with park benches overlooking Veterans Park and a shady trellis - as a senior project.
Tucker said he hopes work in the park will begin in the spring after the cold weather breaks.
And for those who will miss the cascading waterfall, there are plans for a drinking fountain.
Currently, there is no drinking fountain nor trellis. This poor little park has been overgrown with bushes and small trees and there is trash lying in the spot where the falls once existed. This park definitely needs a little TLC.