Q: What (and where) are the biggest swimming pools in the Lone Star State?
A: While everything is, of course, not really bigger in Texas, Texas is indeed full of many very big things. Were the Texanist to lose focus with regard to the question at hand, he might well digress with a long list of big things found across the state, including but not limited to pecan statues (Seguin), rattlesnake statues (Freer), ranches (Kingsville), masonry shafts (the San Jacinto Monument), urban bat colonies (Austin), gas stations (multiple beaver-infested locations), and egos (howdy, y’all!). Alas, the Texanist will exercise restraint.
As for swimming pools, we are very fortunately blessed with a bounty of big, beautiful watery spots. Ranking the very biggest among these by size, however, is trickier than you might think, as exactly what constitutes a swimming pool is a bit of slippery thing (as is, the Texanist has learned, the science of measuring a pool’s capacity). Must it have been entirely made by the hand of a human, or can it be partially organic or even a complete work of Mother Nature? For the purposes of this list, the Texanist has included pools that have both natural and man-made elements, such as Austin’s Barton Springs, while leaving aside fully natural swimming holes, such as Wimberley’s Blue Hole. He’s also chosen not to include pools that are, sadly, currently unswimmable due to low-flowing or no-flowing springs, such as Fort Clark Springs pool, in Brackettville, which, at a million gallons, would rank as the state’s fourth largest.
Plus, some of Texas’s very biggest pools aren’t accessible to the general public. The 6.2-million-gallon Neutral Buoyancy Lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, at 202 feet long, 102 feet wide, and 40 feet deep, is definitely a pool and definitely big—one of the world’s biggest, in fact—but it certainly doesn’t belong on such a list. Likewise, the Lone Star State seems to have entered what the Texanist is going to call, for lack of a better word, a lagoonaissance. For the unfamiliar, pools referred to as lagoons—ridiculously enormous though they may be—are really just gigantic water-filled amenities for master-planned suburban real estate developments. Windsong Ranch, in Prosper, for example, has a five-acre lagoon. Balmoral’s, in Humble, is two acres. These are for residents and guests of residents only. The Lago Mar community, in Texas City, is home to another big one—a twelve-acre behemoth—and it is available to the public. Still, is an artificial lake a swimming pool? The Texanist is of a mind that such monstrosities belong in a class of their own.
The first big swimming pool the Texanist ever saw was the historic Riverside pool, in Belton, near his hometown of Temple. It was so big it had little docks out in the middle of the pool upon which swimmers could rest, and it was once billed as the “largest swimming pool between Austin and Lake Worth and between Galveston and Brownwood.” Today it lives on in an expanded form as Summer Fun Water Park. (Water parks, by the way, have also been excluded from this list.) The next-biggest swimming pool he ever saw was the great big pool at Houston’s historic and long-gone Shamrock Hotel. Remember that glorious natatorial wonder? Built by famous H-Town wildcatter Glenn McCarthy, it was so big the hotel used to put on a water show in it that featured real water-skiers being pulled behind a real motorboat—in the swimming pool.
Without any further ado, please grab your towel, grab a friend or family member, and grab some relief at one of these very biggest swimming pools in Texas (plus—spoiler alert—keep an eye out for a seventh honorable mention at the end).
Balmorhea Pool (Toyahvale)
Capacity: 3.5 million gallons
Out in the West Texas town of Toyahvale, about 190 miles east of El Paso (and 50 or so miles north of Marfa), you’ll fall in love—if you haven’t already—with this high-desert oasis within Balmorhea State Park. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s, the enormous 1.3-acre, partially naturally bottomed pool brims with cool (between 72 and 76 degrees year-round), crystalline water from nearby San Solomon Springs and, if you believe the claim made on the Balmorhea State Park website, constitutes the world’s largest spring-fed swimming pool. After consulting with several experts, including Sean Moran, a professor in the Geographic Information Systems Department at Austin Community College who conducted a GIS study measuring Barton Springs Pool, the Texanist concluded that it’s impossible to declare whether Balmorhea or Barton is larger without further scientific analysis. “Given how close the estimates are, there are a number of variables that could affect the volume,” Moran said.
In addition to constructing the pool, whose shape (from above, it resembles the world’s largest bong) is credited to Abilene architect Frederick William Digby-Roberts, the nearly two hundred members of CCC Company 1856, beginning in 1935, quarried nearby limestone and formed their own adobe bricks to build two bathhouses, a concession building, and the San Solomon Springs Courts, which is reportedly, sometime in the very near future, set to reopen after a lengthy renovation. And the Texanist would have failed in not mentioning that the pool at Balmorhea features what is very probably the most picturesque high-diving board in Texas.
Barton Springs Pool (Austin)
Capacity: 3.2–3.9 million gallons
This fully natural-bottomed beauty, located smack in the heart of Austin, is the oft-touted jewel of the Capital City. The pool is, however, rarely touted as the state’s largest (or world’s largest) spring-fed pool, as Balmorhea often is, even though this urban oasis, the central focal point of the city’s Zilker Park, measures an impressive three surface acres (more than twice the acreage of Balmorhea) and has a volume that some estimates put ahead of Balmorhea’s. The waters here bubble up from the state’s fourth largest array of underground springs. The average temperature ranges from 68 to 70 degrees, and swimmers and bathers enjoy the waters year-round for a small fee—and for free, the Texanist will note, from November to mid-March. Fun fact: Barton Springs, in a fitting alignment with Austin’s freewheeling reputation, is known for occasional toplessness among its more freewheeling patrons.
Landa Park Aquatic Complex’s Spring-Fed Pool (New Braunfels)
Capacity: 1.2 million gallons
This one is part of a multipool watery paradise. In addition to a zero-depth kiddie “pool” and a 25-by-50-meter Olympic-size pool with dedicated lanes for lap swimming, this city-run facility is home to a very large, century-old spring-fed pool. The always-72-degree waters here issue forth from the state’s largest artesian gift, Comal Springs, and fill the big pool to depths ranging from zero to nine feet. Thrill seekers can enjoy a mushroom fountain, an overhanging cargo net for climbing and falling from, a ten-foot-tall water slide, and the two-story Wet Willie slide. The Texanist will also point out that the nearby Comal River, right next to this pool, is one of the state’s great tubing destinations.
Playdium Pool (West)
Capacity: 1.2 million gallons
Most folks, the Texanist included, think of West as a supplier of delicious kolaches for road-weary travelers making their way up and down I-35, not as home to one of the state’s biggest swimming pools. But this enormous off-the-beaten-path cement pond (hat tip to the Beverly Hillbillies), constructed in 1945, has satiated Central Texas swimmers for almost eighty years. Open to the public from Memorial Day through Labor Day, the pool itself is a no-frills rectangle filled with filtered and chlorinated artesian well water. It’s so big that it takes some ten days to fill. For frill seekers, though, there are diving boards (one of which is a high dive), a slide, a kids’ zip line, and, on most summer Sundays, poolside live music. The Playdium Pool also sells a variety of beers and seltzers and features a covered picnic area.
San Pedro Springs Park Pool (San Antonio)
Capacity: 805,000 gallons
San Antonio’s biggest pool brims with 805,000 gallons of cool water—and even more history. The site where the namesake springs once bubbled up more vigorously than they do today, located in central San Antonio, about two miles north of the Alamo, is considered the River City’s birthplace. The artesian waters were named by two Spanish priests in 1709, and the original San Antonio de Valero mission, founded in 1718, was located just west of this spot. The park in which the spacious pool rests dates to 1729, when the Spanish government made it a public commons, which makes San Pedro Springs Park the oldest park in Texas and among the oldest in the whole country. The pool itself, which dates to 1922, was once fed by the springs, and though it is not today, swimmers and bathers still come to cool their heels and relax in the sunshine or beneath the shade of the large overhanging cypress and oak trees.
Deep Eddy Pool (Austin)
Capacity: 600,000 gallons
During the warm months in the mid- to late nineteenth century, Austinites flocked to the north shore of the Colorado River, the waterway that flows through the heart of the city (now dammed and dubbed Lady Bird Lake), to a spot where a large boulder created a gentle eddy (thus the name) that was invitingly cooled by spring water emanating from the bank. In 1915 A. J. Eilers purchased the land around the swimming hole and constructed a concrete pool that, at the time, was the centerpiece of Deep Eddy Bathing Beach, a resort with cabins, camping, carnival rides, and a diving horse show. In 1935 the City of Austin bought Deep Eddy, and today the same chilly, spring-fed, chlorine-free waters (68 to 70 degrees) attract bathers to the partially shaded hundred-foot-long, eight-lane lap pool and the one-acre, zero-to-eight-foot-deep wading pool with a beach-style entrance. At almost 110 years old, Deep Eddy is the oldest swimming pool in Texas and always worth a visit. Texanist’s hot tip: for those without children in tow, be sure to stop by Deep Eddy Cabaret, the historic namesake dive bar, for a post-swim libation. Tell Inger the kindly barkeep that yours truly sent you.
Honorable Mention: The Texas Pool (Plano)
Capacity: 168,000 gallons
That’s six great big pools, but the Texanist is going to Texas-size this list and add one more for good, Texas-size measure. Besides, can you really even say you’ve gone swimming in Texas if you haven’t gone swimming in Texas? The Texanist thinks not. And this is why he’s recommending a trip to Plano’s historic Texas Pool. The handsomely shaped 168,000-gallon pool was the brainchild of well-known wildcatter, oil industry scion, and notorious attempted world silver market–cornerer Herbert Hunt. The pool’s original design is said to have been etched into the dirt with a mesquite stick, and whether this is lore or the Lord’s truth, the Texas Pool opened to the general public in 1961. Such a splash did the pool make at the time that the year’s Miss Plano Pageant was held right there on its grounds. Belated congratulations to Miss Shirley Renfrow! And though this pool has seen hard times over the course of its life, the nonprofit Texas Pool Foundation was established in 2013 as a caretaker, and the group has succeeded in restoring the pool to its former glory. Yes, there are other Texas-shaped pools out there, but the Texanist is aware of only one that has earned a spot on the coveted National Register of Historic Places.
Now, as the Texanist always loudly implores when he’s in close proximity to most any swimming pool, “Last one in’s the biggest (and stinkiest) rotten egg in Texas!”
Have a question for the Texanist? He’s always available here. Be sure to tell him where you’re from.
