With support of the Hendersonville Board of Trade, the Park and Amusement Grounds were established in 1903 with the construction of a baseball field, grandstand, and a 2-story clubhouse to “provide entertainment, interest, and amusement for the strangers within our gates.” By 1904, W.A. Smith had built an earthen dam across the ravine creating Rainbow Lake for boating and swimming, adding an entertainment facility in 1907 called the Casino. The baseball field served as the ballpark for the Hendersonville home team and hosted one of the first regional games between Hendersonville and Asheville. “Echoes of wild and woolly cheers pounded on Long John Mountain across the way and rumbled through the valley” into the late 1930s. The site also hosted the annual Western North Carolina Fair, with exhibits of farm animals, fruits and vegetables, jams and jellies, art exhibits, A.F. Baker photographs, and “T.S. Morrison's Buncombe Beauty Buggies.” Yearly horse shows were followed later by automobile shows.