Commonly known as: Atkinson Park

Former/other names: Shore Acres Park

Location: University Avenue West between Rankin and Bridge Avenues

Property acquired: 1949

Acreage: 6.15

Official designation: Community park

Atkinson Park, overlooking the Detroit River on the south side of Riverside Drive West between Bridge and Rankin Avenues, was once the site of Colonel Arthur Rankin's family home. Rankin built the dwelling in 1842 and lived there until his death in 1893. In 1925, the building was destroyed by fire.

Years later, in the 1930s and 1940s, the Shore Acres Hotel stood on the property. It was during this time that area youngsters began using a vacant lot adjacent to the hotel for informal baseball games.

In the mid-1940s, the B. Segal Company, owners of the hotel, began exploring the possibility of closing the hotel and opening a new business in another area of the City. Late in 1949, shortly after the Ontario Liquor License Board approved the Segal Company's application for a liquor license at their new location at Partington Avenue and London (University Avenue) Street, the City purchased the site of today's Atkinson Park for $40,000.

Ernest Atkinson was an instrumental figure in the acquisition of the park site in 1949. Along with Elis Shamess, manager of the Shore Acres Hotel, Atkinson spearheaded negotiations with the Segal Company. In the late 1940s, Atkinson was a veteran of both the Second World War and the backroom political wars at City Hall. First elected to the Windsor Board of Education in 1932,

Atkinson served the City in various capacities until 1958. Except for a two year period of military service (1944-46), Atkinson's tenure as an elected municipal official was uninterrupted for 26 years.

In 1953, the City of Windsor and the Windsor Rotary Club undertook an ambitious project to construct a swimming pool at the former site of the hotel. Primarily the brainchild of Windsor Mayor Arthur Reaume, the swimming pool project was completed in 1954, though the price, then Department of Parks and Recreation 6 A History of Windsor’s Parks an astounding $135,000 – surely turned some heads. The bulk of the financing was provided by the Windsor Rotary Club, while the City, the Ontario government, and private contributors also provided some funding.

In 1961, three years after his formal retirement from public life, the City formally acknowledged Ernest Atkinson's many contributions to the quality of life in Windsor, and named the park in his honour. In 1973, the Archaeological and Historic Sites Advisory Board recommended that a plaque acknowledging the Rankin family's contributions to life in early Windsor be installed at the park. In 1975, just such a plaque was installed at Atkinson Park.