The Big Pool in Garden City is a mammoth concrete swimming pool measuring 320 by 220 feet, with a surface area of 72,600 square feet and a capacity of 2.6 million gallons of water. Long tied to the community's heritage and identity, it was originally inspired by Mayor H. O. Trinkle in 1921 and, despite concerns about construction costs, became a hometown project in which Garden City residents pledged labor, materials, or money to dig the pool and pour its concrete. At its dedication on July 18, 1922, a band played as hundreds of people entered the water together to inaugurate Garden City's first summer swim season. By the late 1990s, the pool badly needed renovation, and after community input the City Commission had Water's Edge Aquatic Design prepare a master plan, though the eight million dollar cost required the work to be divided into smaller phases. In 2003, management was transferred to the Garden City Recreation Commission, which instituted the pool's first user fees, ending its traditional claim as the World's Largest Free Outdoor Concrete Municipal Swimming Pool, but attendance increased that year. In 2006, swimmers inaugurated the most significant improvements in the pool's eighty-four-year history, including five slides, a plunge pool, and a bulkhead dividing the pool into north and south halves, preserving a historic landmark while creating a modern facility for swimmers of all ages.