Cottage City Skating Rink
Vineyard Gazette
The proposed revival of a roller skating rink in Oak Bluffs calls to mind the grandeur of the one that occupied a place of honor in that town from 1878 to 1892.
Roller skating became a craze in the early 1870’s, and the first roller rink in the country was built in Worcester by a wealthy promoter named Samuel Winslow who had invented a new and improved type of skate, in 1876. The idea caught on with great speed, and by the time the rink at Oak Bluffs was completed, just about every able-bodied individual in the country was swooping around on roller skates.
Vineyard Gazette
The new skating rink was formally opened Saturday evening last, under the most favorable auspices. The evening was clear and cool, and the City had received those accessions of population incident to the closing day of the week, and the ample space about the skating enclosure was accordingly crowded to overflowing with the recipients of the seven hundred invitations issued.
Vineyard Gazette
The Vineyard Skating Rink, now transformed into the “Cottage City Casino,” equipped with stage and scenery and furnished with comfortable seating, is likely to prove one of the most popular institutions of Cottage City. Mr. H. E. Reed, a wide-awake gentleman of proved executive ability, is the manager, and has already opened the ball with a week of comic opera.
