MANSFIELD — Mansfield Policeman Frend Boals had a unique idea, one born from tragedy, that blossoms to this very day.
In 1937, after a child on the way to school was struck and killed by a car, Boals conceived the idea to create Safety Town.
The very first Safety Town event took place at Prospect Park in Mansfield on Aug. 6, 1937. It bloomed into an international phenomenon.
It began as an experiment and was inspired by a book. Patrolman Boals established it as a method to teach fundamentals of traffic cooperation. He was sparked by a book of children’s stories written by the supervisor of Mansfield primary schools, Mildred Miles Roberts.
Her 1930 book was called “Safety Town Stories,” and the cover is emblematic of the entire Safety Town concept: kids and a traffic light.
From the very first day when children crossed at the corners of make-believe streets, and learned to pay attention to traffic lights like it was a game, everyone knew the ‘experiment’ was a success.
Within a week there were representatives on site from the national AAA office in Washington D.C. reporting back to the National Safety Department. Within two weeks there were film crews from Chicago in town hoping to get footage for news reels.
Over the next few years the Safety Town story with pictures of Mansfield kids appeared in newspapers and magazines across the nation. The American Automobile Association adopted it as part of their permanent pedestrian safety program.
From there the idea took off like it was always meant to be a part of American life.
They say nothing is more difficult to stop than an idea whose time has come. The Safety Town idea arrived right on time. In 1937 there were dozens of Depression-era WPA programs entirely focused on safety issues.
Every city had a “Safety Council.” Mansfield had several “Safety Week” events during the year; for drivers, for workers, and for homemakers.
When Officer Boals took the ABCs of safety to the preschool kids of Mansfield he was already riding a societal wave of interest. Making it kid-friendly was his genius.
He turned it into a game. He wanted it to be so fun the kids would be singing their lessons.
He built kid-sized streets with stop signs that were only as tall as a 6-year old. He got the firemen of Station 1 to build wooden sidewalks and a kid-sized traffic light.
A sign painter named Roy Gale made kid-sized houses to put in the neighborhoods of Safety Town; and in 1938 Boals talked the Richland County Automobile Club into buying 25 bright red toy cars for kids to pedal around the streets.
The first class in 1937 graduated 40 youngsters. In 1938 there were 300.
In those first few seasons Safety Town was a portable village sponsored by the City Recreation Department that moved every other week to a different part of the city. It was established at Woodland School, Hedges, West First Street, West Fifth Street and Western Avenue Schools; Johns Park, North Lake Park and Liberty Park. It even emigrated to Shelby for two weeks.
Since that beginning Safety Town has been in continuous habitation except for a 5 year hiatus during World War II. In the 1970s there was talk of discontinuing it when enrollment dropped to rock-bottom numbers, but someone always stepped in to spring for new materials.
From the very earliest years there was always talk of building a permanent Safety Town in Mansfield, but different generations and different decades found the kid’s burg settling wherever it could. For many years its most permanent location was at the old Brinkerhoff School on Marion Avenue.
In 1953 it was replanted at the new Brinkerhoff School on Euclid Avenue and a sign was posted to establish its official latitude and longitude.
In recent years it could also be found at Woodland or Raemelton Schools.
The whole concept of Safety Town was sound and ingenious: plant the seed of sanity in little minds when they are at that age when everything makes an indelible impression.
So does it work? The proof is easy to find: there are many dozens of grown, mature (old) folks in Mansfield who can still sing their Safety Town songs.
This program has been sponsored by the City of Mansfield and funded by private donations ever since that time. This generous support has enabled the City to continue this program without cost to children and their families. It has kept the same basic concept of teaching pre-kindergarten children traffic safety.
As times have changes so has Safety Town. The program now includes:
- Pedestrian safety
- Bicycle safety
- Stranger safety
- Drug awareness
- Fire safety
- School bus safety
- Outdoor safety
- Seat belt safety
These are the lessons that will benefit our children for a lifetime.