The Superior Express -

Last week’s entries in this space about the building of the Simic roller skating rink caused readers to ask about previous roller skating rinks. I don’t have the answers to all their questions but here is some information I gathered from the newspaper accounts about roller rinks in this area. I’m sure I missed many stories and have failed to include some of the rinks.

The first mention found reported on the opening of a roller skating rink in Nelson on Sept. 4, 1884. The next spring the rink held two and a half mile long skating races, one for the guys and one for the girls. The rink was short-lived for a fire that started in the Ritterbush and Dowland store destroyed all the frame buildings in that block including the skating rink. Notes taken while looking through old newspapers, give conflicting dates for the fire. One reference indicated the rink was destroyed by fire in April of 1889 and  another reference places the fire in May of 1891. It is possible there may have been two fires and two rinks destroyed.

Fires were a common occurrence in the early days when fire departments were poorly equipped and buildings were heated with either wood or coal fires.

There are numerous mentions of a skating rink being located in Booster Hall. Booster Hall was a popular Nelson venue located where the C&M Supply service station is now located. At this writing we are not sure when it was built or when it closed  but the Portwoods sold the hall in 1961 to an apparently out-of-the area company that had plans to open a feed mill in Nelson. It doesn’t appear the mill ever opened. In 1963, the building was removed by the Schott family and the present gasoline station built on the site. 

Many of the early rinks ran only in the summer months, apparently were portable and either open air or housed inside a tent.

In October of 1918, it was reported John Jacoby had moved his skating rink from Nelson to Superior. He had opened the rink in Nelson in the spring of 1917.

A 1930 newspaper reported on a roller skating party held at Nora.

In June of 1935, the Superior City Council instructed its attorney, J.W. Boyd, to prepare a new ordinance covering roller skating rinks. It specified the license fee should be $10 a month. The previous rate was $5 a day. It was thought the $10 fee would open the way for a return of a pastime that had been extremely popular in Superior three years earlier. However, the city’s attempt to collect from the skating rink operators the carnival license fee, the rinks left town. The Express reported many people believed a well conducted roller skating rink would provide wholesome entertainment.

The new rate would be $10 a month. The previous rate was $5 a day which in today’s dollars would be more than $113 per day.

In 1938, the license fee was reduced to $30 annually.

The lower rate must have worked for on Sept. 26, 1935, The Express reported Ord Kite was taken to Brodstone Hospital suffering from injuries suffered when he fell at a tent roller skating rink. Examination revealed two skull fractures.

In 1937, permission was granted to operate a roller skating rink in the new Superior City Auditorium two afternoons and evenings each week.

The July 28, 1932, edition of The Express reported under the headline which read, “Everybody is Skating” the popularity of roller skating as a pastime had grown measurably since the opening of  the Malsbury Brothers’ rink two weeks earlier. The way in which the rink was conducted had won many friends for the owners. Order was maintained in a strict, yet courteous manner. Promptly at 10 o’clock each evening the skating was brought to a close. People had even come to Superior from surrounding towns just to roller skate.

The rink was located on the lot south of the Northwestern Depot. The owners were from Lebanon, Kansas, and had operated their rink at Geneva in 1931.

An item in a September, 1955, issue of The Express reported an old building at Second and Central that had been torn down by Superior Farm Equipment had housed a skating rink in the 1916 to 1918 time frame.  That report came from a subscriber at Esbon, Lillie Simmons.

In1938, the Skatemor rink opened where the VFW club is now located. That location has a long association with recreation. It has been the location of a baseball field, and many carnivals and circuses played there. Dec. 31, 1914, it was reported the Star Skating Rink at that location was sold to Ben Young. The Skatemor was sold to the VFW and removed in 1966 to make way for a new club house.

Roller skating was popular in other nearby communities. In 1954, the Jewell High School held a skating party at the roller rink in Hardy.

Feb. 7, 1924, the Lovewell items printed in The Express reported the roller skating rink was well filled on Saturday night and another skating party was planned for Wednesday night.  Evidently, Lovewell had at least a portable rink.

In 1930, the Nora correspondent reported a number of Nora area folks were roller skating at the Blue Moon rink located near Deshler. It was described as a very fine rink.

In 1957, the Hardy rink opened for the winter season on Saturday, Aug. 31. Regular skate nights were Saturday, Sunday and Thursday with the lunch room open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Bill Owen was the operator.

The Hardy rink was built in 1951 by Mr. and Mrs. Ed Persinger and was said to have had one of the best skating floors in the midwest. The building was dismantled  in September of 1962 and moved to Concordia where it was to become the center pavilion for a sale barn. It was located across the street west of the lumber yard.

Superior’s Skatemor was hard to heat and thus only open during warmer weather. In 1959, it opened for the summer season on April 16. Hours were 8 to 10 p.m. Regular nights were Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Party nights were Monday and Wednesday. Children’s night was Friday from 7 to 9  p.m.

An Aug. 13,  1920, advertisement in the Lawrence Locomotive promoted Superior’s Lincoln Park as a recreation destination. It was said visitors to the community could  dance, roller skate and swim in Superior’s Lincoln Park. Dancing was scheduled for Tuesday and Saturday at the Dreamland Pavilion which had a hard maple floor 50 x 10 feet. Roller skating was available Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

And then there was swimming in the new concrete pool every afternoon and evening. The pool was 100 feet in diameter and 11 feet deep in the center. And there was a little pool for the kiddies. 

The Sept. 13, 1934, Locomotive had an ad for the community’s new dance pavilion. A dance was planned for that Sunday, admission was 35 cents. Roller skating was available every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 7:30 to 10:30.

Guide Rock’s July 4th, 1928, celebration at Golden Rod Beach included baseball, swimming, roller skating and dancing.

In 1947, the future plans for St. Stephens Parish included the building of a permanent outdoor platform to be used for dances and roller skating. It was to be built north of the old parsonage and be ready for use when the annual picnic was held on Aug 3.

May 25, 1928, a number of young folks of Lawrence and vicinity were driving to Blue Hill on the nice evenings and enjoying themselves roller skating.

Dec. 11, 1947, Ambrose Heinz had the misfortune of breaking his arm while roller skating in the basement of a Lawrence church.