If you live on Military Hill, your August calendar looks different this year. The building most of us default to when the afternoon gets long, the pool and gym at the top of NW Larry Street, is dark until fall. That single change has quietly rearranged the neighborhood's weekend map, and the workarounds turn out to be better than most of us expected.
Here is how to spend the next few Saturdays without leaving the rhythm of the hill.
The one closure reshaping August
The old Pullman Aquatic & Fitness Center on Military Hill reopened last year under a new name and new owner. Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories bought the building from the Pullman School District in 2025 for the facility's 25th anniversary, renamed it the Schweitzer Wellbeing Center, and committed to a full renovation. That renovation is happening right now.
The Schweitzer Wellbeing Center closed beginning May 1, 2026 for a major renovation and expansion. The closure is expected to continue through September 2026. Monthly memberships were paused automatically starting May 1, and existing class packages remain valid through December 31, 2026 upon reopening.
If you had a punch card or a class package sitting on the fridge, it still counts. If your kids were mid-swim-lesson progression, the schedule picks up where it left off. In the meantime, the neighborhood still has its best asset: the 25 acres of open ground the building sits on.
A workaround weekend, hour by hour
Instead of listing amenities, here is what an actual late-summer Saturday looks like when you route around the closed building.
Friday, 6:30 p.m. — Tennis at Military Hill Park
Military Hill Park runs six tennis courts along the shared campus with Pullman High School. They sit right next to the closed wellbeing center at 500 NW Greyhound Way, and they are the least-used piece of the 25-acre site during the week. Bring a can of balls. If tennis is not your sport, the exercise trail that wraps the perimeter of the park is a flat 20-minute loop with views out over the wheat fields to the south, which is the reason Military Hill Park was sited where it was in the first place.
The park has restrooms, a picnic shelter, BBQs, and a children's playground clustered near the parking lot. Quann Field, the primary baseball diamond, has been lit since 1979, which matters if you have a kid on a late-summer league or you want to catch the last innings after dinner.
Saturday, 9:00 a.m. — Coffee and a plan
Grab something to drink and think about the day. Cougar Country Drive In at 760 N Grand Ave has been a Pullman institution since 1973 and opens at 11 a.m. daily, so it is not the morning stop, but pin it for lunch. Their banana peanut butter shake is the one most locals will point you toward if you ask.
Saturday, 1:00 p.m. — Reaney Park Pool
This is the big one. Reaney Park Pool is Pullman's outdoor summer pool, and for these last weeks of August it is doing double duty as the neighborhood pool for everyone who normally swims on Military Hill. It sits at 690 Reaney Way, a straight shot down off the hill into downtown, and it is open 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. daily through roughly the last week of August, which is when the outdoor pool always closes for the season.
A few numbers worth knowing before you drive over:
- Summer swim pass, youth ages 4 to 17: $60
- Facility: 8-lane lap pool plus a recreation pool with diving boards and spray grounds
- Season: end of the school year through the final week of August
For a family that would otherwise buy day passes at the indoor pool all summer, the $60 pass has probably already paid for itself. For anyone who has not used Reaney because the indoor center was closer, the outdoor experience is a different thing entirely: diving boards, spray grounds, and a shallow area big enough that toddlers get their own zone. The tradeoff is that when September arrives, the outdoor pool closes and the indoor pool is still under construction. Plan the next three weekends accordingly.
Saturday, 6:00 p.m. — Dinner downtown
Downtown Pullman is a five-minute drive off Military Hill and it is where the summer evening crowd goes. A few named options, all locally owned:
- Paradise Creek Brewery, which started in 2010 in the historic downtown post office building and has since expanded to a second brewery taproom. The downtown restaurant is the casual meal. The taproom is the patio and the sour beer program.
- Birch & Barley, American classics with a Southern lean, patio seating, and a Cougar Gold mac and cheese that uses the sharp white cheddar that WSU students have been canning on campus since 1948.
- Namaste Indian Kitchen on Golden Hills Drive, which is the newest opening in the local restaurant guide as of June 2026.
- The Black Cypress, when you want the destination dinner rather than the neighborhood one.
Thursday, any Thursday in August — Free music
Do not skip this one. Every Thursday evening from June through August, Pine Street Plaza in downtown Pullman hosts live music. No cover, no reservations. The lineup pulls local and regional acts, and the crowd is a real cross-section: students who stayed for the summer, families with strollers, longtime residents in camp chairs. From Military Hill it is a 10-minute walk if you take the Bill Chipman Palouse Trail spur, or five minutes by car.
The date to circle: Saturday, August 22
The one weekend where the whole town shows up is the National Lentil Festival on August 22, 2026, downtown. It has been running since 1989, and the anchor is the World's Largest Lentil Chili Bowl. The full day includes a grand parade, a fun run, a cooking competition, a beer garden, and a food and artisan marketplace. If you have out-of-town family visiting, this is the weekend to bring them.
A practical note for Military Hill residents: the parade and festival footprint pull traffic into downtown all day. The easiest move is to walk down the hill in the morning, spend the day, and walk back. If you drive, park early on the residential streets north of Main and treat it as a two-block walk in.
Two ways to think about the pool math
The Schweitzer Wellbeing Center absence has produced two quiet reorderings on Military Hill that are worth naming, because they will not last past September.
| What Military Hill normally offers | What August 2026 actually looks like |
|---|---|
| Year-round indoor pool at the top of the hill | Indoor pool closed; Reaney Park Pool is the substitute, 1–6 p.m. daily, through the last week of August |
| Drop-in gym on Larry Street | Drop-in gym closed; the perimeter exercise trail at Military Hill Park is the free substitute |
| Membership billed monthly | Monthly memberships auto-paused since May 1; class packages held through Dec 31, 2026 |
| High school swim meets and youth lessons on the hill | Lessons and meets displaced; Reaney handles what the season allows |
The renovation is expected to be finished by fall. The neighborhood's central meeting building comes back online right as the outdoor pool closes for the winter, which is roughly the transition Pullman families have been making every September for years. This year the handoff just happens to be a physical one, from Reaney back up to Larry Street.
The one thing I would not skip
If I had to pick a single afternoon on Military Hill to give a visiting friend a real sense of the neighborhood right now, it would be this: coffee downtown in the morning, an hour at Reaney Park Pool, the banana peanut butter shake from Cougar Country, and an evening loop around the exercise trail at Military Hill Park while the sun sets behind Moscow Mountain. The building at the center of the park is closed. The park itself is doing more work than usual to hold the neighborhood's summer together, and it is doing it well.
By late September the punch cards come out of the drawer, the pool moves back indoors, and the loop shortens back to the top of the hill. Until then, the workaround is the routine.
If you are a Military Hill homeowner curious about what your address is worth as we head into the fall market, or you are watching listings from out of town and want a real read on the neighborhood, Krista Gross is glad to help. Request a personalized home valuation and we will walk through the numbers together.
