Freeways and Speedskating

Published February 13, 2014 by Kirsten Delegard

When speedskater Johnny Werket returned to Minneapolis after placing sixth in Olympic competition at St. Moritz, his classmates at Augsburg College suspended normal routine to celebrate his accomplishments. The campus welcomed him home with a marching band, assembly and dinner. March, 15, 1948 was declared “Johnny Werket Day.”

Werket would compete in two additional winter Olympics. He would win four championships before turning to coaching. Two of his proteges (Diane Holum and Anne Henning)  won gold medal winners at the 1972 Olympic games in Sapporo, Japan.

Werket was one of four members of the American speedskating team to come from Minneapolis in 1948. Another Minneapolitan– Ken Bartholomew–brought home a silver medal. Two other teammates from the Powderhorn Skating Club– Arthur Seaman and Robert Fitzgerald–also competed for the United States.

These Olympic competitors were all products of the Powderhorn Skating Club, which was based at Powderhorn Park in central Minneapolis. This small urban park–with no real facilities besides a lake–was an international powerhouse for speedskating from the 1930s through the 1950s. Its storied history illuminates how much international athletic competition has changed since the mid-twentieth century.

Powderhorn’s international influence ended, it seems, with the creation of the freeway system in Minneapolis. The construction of a trench for 35W drained Powderhorn Lake, dropping water levels 3.5 feet, their lowest recorded depth. Park historian David C. Smith explains that the Park Board responded to this change by moving the city’s speedskating track to Lake Harriet.

At first glance, the move did not seem to diminish the sport. In 1963, Olympic speedskating trials were again held in Minneapolis. This time two Minneapolitans– Tom Gray and Marie Lawler qualified for the 1964 Olympic team. Lawler was the first woman from Minneapolis to make the Olympic speedskating team.

But the Lake Harriet site was short-lived. The track was again moved to Lake Nokomis, where it seems that competitive speedskating died in Minneapolis. Athletes complained that the lake’s high winds made training difficult. Participation plummeted. The track was closed as part of a large scale cutback of outdoor skating rinks in the early 1980s. A Park Board study showed that outdoor rink use had dropped by half since 1970. This shift had to be driven, in part, by the construction of indoor, climate-controlled skating facilities.

The Park Board tried to bring speedskating back to Powderhorn  in the 1990s. Even with the assistance of skating legend Ken Bartholomew, it could not recapture the glory days of the Powderhorn Skating Club.

Material for his post is taken from the vertical files of the Minneapolis Collection at the Hennepin County Central Library. Source for the connection between Powderhorn Lake and 35W is the park board’s annual report from 1963. The image is page 89 of the 1948 Augsburgian, Augsburg College.

 

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