The Lights and Music of the Loon Lake Roller Rink

You could see the reflection of the colored lights on Loon Lake almost from every point of the lake, not to mention the theatre organ type music resounding off the waters. Inside was the slightly warped floor, the shutters flung open on warm nights so one could observe the night sky over Loon Lake, and that organ music belting out the tunes. Now and then all skaters had to leave the floor giving way to couples or all women or all men. I seem to recall some sort of ball that reflected different colors throughout the evening depending on the musical number.

I recall a side room with dairy queen like ice cream and a few pinball machines. As I said in another post, before this was a roller rink it served as a dance club. Otto Bartlett owned both the roller rink and the Big Bass Lake store so he was an early tycoon in the area. His daughter, Dixie, was a superb roller skater.

In the 1950’s when my family spent a few weeks at our family farm on Big Bass Lake we made several evening trips to that roller rink. They need another one on Loon Lake or better yet, Big Bass Lake.