SALEM - Reilly Stadium hosted John F. Kennedy, who spoke there before he was elected president. It was the site of the first lighted football game in Ohio. Jesse Owens once ran on the track at the stadium.
The stadium with a school building at one end and a brick wall encircling it has seen some great events. It also has seen some better days.
Repairs to the brick walls along East Pershing Street and Ohio Avenue are being considered as a joint project between the Salem Board of Education and the Salem Preservation Society. At a meeting of the preservationists held Wednesday night at the Salem Area Historical Society, board president Steve Bailey said the school is looking at repairing the walls.
The one along Pershing has been pushed back from its base and is crumbling in places. Architects looking at the project have all suggested that portion of the wall be torn down and rebuilt. The bricks in the wall behind the visitor's bleachers and along Ohio Avenue need to be repointed with new mortar, but the wall is in better condition there.
While permanent improvement fund money could be used for the project, Bailey said the school does not have the amounts of money needed to renovate it to look similar to how it looks right now.
After the meeting, Bailey said the board's building and grounds committee made up of himself, fellow board member Jeff Cushman, Superintendent Tom Bratten and maintenance supervisor Ken Hardy have been looking at their options with the wall's condition and all of their plans are very much in the preliminary stages. He said the members of the preservation society approached them offering to help.
Some members of the preservation society led by Karen Carter and Keith Berger said they would like to see the East Pershing Street wall be reconstructed nearly the same, but with some improvements. Currently, some areas of the wall have been replaced by chain link fence gates. Instead, they would like to see gates in the integrity of the wall and a ticket booth placed nearby.
When asked the price tag for such a project, the two said estimates have been as high as $500,000. In order to proceed, drawings would need to be done. Carter and Berger said after interviewing several they are interested in working with architect David Sommers, a Salem alumnus. Fund-raisers would have to be held.
The first step made on Wednesday was to form an official committee to work with the board of education members to create a memorandum of understanding. Members selected for the committee are Berger, Carter, David Schwartz, Melissia Hartman and preservation society president Craig Brown.
After the meeting, Brown said the memorandum is the best way to make certain that everyone's expectations, both the board and the society are met when the project is completed. It will give them an opportunity to determine how much and what parts of the project will be accomplished in stages as funds become available.
"What they could do themselves, would be more based on financial than artistic," Brown said.
He feels it is important to the preservation society members that the wall does not change aesthetically because of the memories people have from participating in events and attending school at the stadium.
According to David Schwartz, the stadium was named after General James W. Reilly, a respected general during the Civil War who came from Wellsville. After he died money from his estate ended up being divided between schools districts in the county. Salem schools decided to use the money to build the stadium.
