By HEATHER NELLIS

For the Express

PERTH — There isn’t much to remind the town’s residents of a once-booming recreation spot known as Healey’s Park on Route 30 — but not for long.

The Perth Historical Society will be placing a historic marker on the site on Saturday to remind people of the former park’s significance.

Society President Sylvia Zierak said the park, comprised of nearly 25 acres, was opened in 1924 by resident Thomas Healey. It featured a man-made mill pond that was emptied scoop-by-scoop by teams of horses. Sand was drawn in to provide a beach, and a bathhouse was built for swimmers. The park provided rowboat rentals and a picnic area, as well as a high-rise and corkscrew slides that plunged swimmers into the water.

The park stretched down Amsterdam-Broadalbin Road, later known as Perth Road, now known as Route 30. The main attraction was a pavilion that was originally known as a dance hall.

“The inside was decorated with colored lights, palm trees, and umbrellas hanging from the ceiling,” Zierak said. “From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, big bands of the era such as Paul Whiteman and entertainers such as Rudy Vallee made their appearances there. It was a very upscale dance hall and everyone had to be properly dressed in order to be admitted.”

According to the organization Lost Landmarks of Upstate New York, the park did not offer overnight accommodations, but provided a spot for day-trippers, often mill workers looking for a break from the standard 48-hour workweeks.

Better yet, Healey provided buses that ran from Amsterdam, Gloversville and Johnstown to the park, and also catered to automobile traffic along the road.

Unfortunately, its popularity was short-lived, starting its decline in the late 1930s.

“The pavilion finally became a roller rink to cash in on the skating craze that just preceded World War II. But postwar prosperity was what the park couldn’t endure. Healey’s closed in the late 1940s, an ironic casualty of the growing popularity of long-distance automobile travel and the weeklong vacation,” the organization’s site reads.

Nothing remains of the once famous dance hall and park. Zierak said the area that was once the pond has filled with silt and brush, and in 1998 the decayed dance hall was torn down. The guest cottage was occupied until it burned in 2005. The rest of the buildings were torn down.

Those buildings gone, Zierak said she doesn’t want people to forget what the park once represented.

“In 1920, there was nothing between Amsterdam and Vail Mills,” Zierak said. “So many people went there. Some people still fondly remember when it was a roller-skating rink, but I think you would have to be in your 90s or 100s to remember it as a dance hall.”

But Zierak is hoping she will be surprised at the marker’s reveal.

“If anyone has any articles, pictures, or stories they would like to add to our history, please come and share them at the unveiling of our historic marker,” she said.

The unveiling will take place at the Perth Town Hall on Route 107, and the marker will then be mounted at the park site on Route 30, just north of the Perth four corners.

The event starts at 7 p.m.

Anyone with questions can contact Zierak at 842-9497.