SUGGESTION: NAME WASH. PARK FOUNTAIN AFTER MARIO

By Juan Montoya
Next time you pass by Washington Park, either by day or night, you will see the fountain in the middle.

During the day, it stands like an oasis in the middle of town. At night, it is a fount of many colors drawing neighborhood residents to the park to while away the time.

But for a long time it was a dry hole, emitting neither water nor its colored lights and the dank, stagnant pool of water was breeding mosquitoes. The piping had corroded and the original lights were no longer available to replace the ones that had burned out. Committees had been set up by the city administration, but no one seemed to be able to do anything to restore it to its original state.

It took years, and if not for the persistence of a local businessman, it would have remained an eyesore. That man was Mario Villarreal, former Port of Brownsville commissioner, whose dogged efforts forced the city administration to repair the Brownsville iconic fixture.

Villarreal, president and owner of Pesa Enterprises and a former Public Utilities Board administrator and elected official, had tried for years to have the city restore the water fountain.

When it was built in 1929, the fountain was heralded all over the area for its synchronized water geysers and multi-colored lights that drew visitors from throughout South Texas.
After decades of operating, the fountain was allowed to fall into disrepair, and was restored in time in December 1975 just in time to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the park. Some of those who helped to restore it were Frank and Fausto Yturria and Pansy Yturria.

In a petition circulated back in May 2005,  local luminaries like developer Bill Hudson, Villarreal, former city commissioner Ernesto De Leon, Rudy Falcon, the late Port of Brownsville commissioner Dan Reyna, among others, urged the city to "repair the fountain to its original condition."

When Mario Villarreal's father Faustino and A.S. Garcia, an employee at Putegnat Hardware joined Mary Yturria and other City of Brownsville administrators way back in the 1960s to work on the Washington Park fountain, it was already a city landmark known throughout the Valley.
"My dad helped Miss Yturria and the other people at PUB to get the fountain to shoot out water and synchronize the different colors so that it looked like the water was changing colors," remembered Villarreal.

Mary Yturria, who spoke before the city commissioners years later, said that repairing the fountain to its former greatness was her personal dream. She recalled the children of the city and nearby towns gathering around the cement pool to collect water in bottles to take home with them.
"They thought the water would remain colored when they got home," she said with a smile.

It seemed that Yturria's dream would never became reality as hard times fell on the old fountain. The old tubing that made the water shoot geysers as tall as 65 feet in the air and then diminish in size as the colored lights alternated eroded over time and had to be replaced. Until the recent restoration, the geysers were mere spouts of varying sizes that were colored by lights so dim they seem to be but of a single hue.

Workmen trying to get the water to shoot higher found that when the level of the water in the pool got too low, air seeped into the system and diminished the flow.
"When it gets to a certain level, air goes in the pipes and we have to purge it," said a worker. "The lights work, too, but they are not as bright as they used to be so they seem to be of only one color."

Villarreal worked with the city to repair the fountain that was a source of pride for his late father. As a businessman who does extensive business in Mexico, he took it on his own to find the original replacement parts in the interior and passed along the information to the city.
"They already had a committee working on the fountain and they didn't pay much attention to what we told them," he said. "Instead they went out to other parts dealers in the United States and that's what we ended up with. It's was nothing like what it used to be."

"I have a personal relationship with that fountain because my dad worked on it," he said. "It's good to see it color up again like it used to when it was first built."

Lately, time has caught up with Mario just as it did with his beloved fountain. After a series of surgeries, he shows the signs of age and time on his now-stooped shoulders. But like the old warhorse he is – he was a captain in the Army when Hispanic officers were counted on one hand – he insists on showing up for work in his office at 700 E. Levee every morning.

"Pos que le vamos a hacer, Montoya," he says wistfully. "Hay que trabajar."