Early in Sayre’s development as a planned community, founder Howard Elmer arranged for two public parks. Desmond Street Park was graded and planted with trees in 1882, became a well-used gathering place for shoppers, railroad travelers, and community events, and during World War I hosted marching drills by soldiers from troop trains stopping at the Sayre Canteen beside the Lehigh Valley Railroad passenger station; the park ended in 1955, after which J. J. Newberry Company Department Store was built there, and today the site is occupied by medical offices. The Sayre Canteen of the American Red Cross, staffed day and night by volunteers, served free food and small personal items to troops and continued aiding returning military personnel after the war, serving more than 143,000 troops by the time it ended in 1919. Howard Elmer Park, a Sayre park since the late 1870s and later named for the founder, featured a bandstand from 1886 and after World War I gained the Doughboy Monument honoring Sayre’s 12 war dead; later names were added for 51 deaths in World War II, three in Korea, and three in Vietnam. Its World War I cannon was removed during World War II for scrap to aid national defense, and its other memorials include the Guthrie Boulder for Dr. Donald Guthrie, a Lehigh Valley Railroad monument, a fountain in memory of Howard Elmer, a monument to volunteer firefighters with a time capsule, and the Battle Cross Tribute Monument honoring those who served the nation. Over the years the park hosted concerts, prayer gatherings, political rallies, arts fairs, patriotic events, Flag Day ceremonies, Santa Claus arrivals, and weddings. Keystone Park, an amusement park near North Keystone Avenue by the South Waverly border, drew visitors along the Waverly, Sayre and Athens Trolley route from 1910 until a few years after trolley service ended in 1930, with attractions including a figure eight roller coaster and a carousel. Sayre’s early public elementary schools were neighborhood schools named Elmer Avenue, Milltown, East Side, and Fourth Ward; the Epiphany parochial school was added in 1929. Sayre High School, east of the ponds, was used from 1891 to 1929, when the current high school west of the ponds opened; the former high school then became a Community Center, later reopened as Central Elementary School, and was eventually demolished after the opening of H. Austin Snyder Elementary School.