A brief history of the Stevens Point Curling Club
by David Garber, November 4, 2013
In 1956, Howard Woodside and Ed Stratton scribed and flooded an outdoor sheet of curling ice in Goerke Park, on what is now tennis court #1 across from the old armory and adjacent to the Copps Pool. Woodside and Stratton were from Portage and Waupaca, respectively, both curling towns since the mid-1800s. The stones were stored on site in an old gray wooden box of the type used by the city to store, of all things, sand for winter use on streets. I was seven in 1956, grew up two blocks from Goerke, and, with other little boys ranging around back then, noted the odd ice sheet with mild curiosity. I had no inkling then of how curling would later impact my life.
Conditions must have been tough for those early curlers, who founded the Stevens Point Curling Club in 1956. By 1959, Woodside had had enough of outdoor ice. With his outsized personality and powers of persuasion, he lured about 50 men to commit to curling, and to co-sign a bank loan to build a Spartan two-sheet facility at the present site, for about $20,000.00. The original warm room was two-sheets wide and just 15 feet deep enough for two small bathrooms, two rows of pews, and a pay phone. Social events and after-game sociality were held across the lot at the old Country Club clubhouse. The furnace and refrigeration rooms were where they are today. The compressor used salt brine, the brine tank later removed in favor of glycol. There was no cooling tower outside that function was part of the indoor refrigeration system, which had been bought used in 1959 and is still in service today except for the condenser. The same building plan was also used by the Green Bay, Tri-City and Lakeshore (now defunct) Curling Clubs.
Woodside was an attorney and a member of the Stevens Point Country Club. He persuaded that board of directors to conclude a 99-year lease on the curling club land at one dollar per year. In the late 1980s, the curling club paid off the balance of that lease, fifty-some dollars. My dad Ben and Walt Okray, Tom Okray's dad, were two of the charter members. A wooden plaque listing the charter members and original corporate supporters was lost during the 1989 remodeling. My dad started me curling in 1961, including duty as "hose man" during flooding. Curling was a WIAA letter sport in Wisconsin from 1959-1973 I played for PJ Jacobs (then the senior high!).
The warm room was doubled in size in the late 1970s, still two sheets wide but now 30 feet deep, with a major donation from "Shorty" Schierl. There was room now for two tables to sit around after games. The bathrooms were bigger and the club now boasted its own kitchen. It was still quite crowded during 'spiels.
The club was able to retire its mortgage in the 1980s when about 15 members provided interest-free loans to pay off the mortgage. The club then made annual principle payments to these members, instead of interest payments. Within about five years, all debt was retired.
In the summer of 1987 the warm rooms were extended north about 40 feet, doubling again, aided again by a major donation from the Schierl family, this time in honor of Shorty's son, Butch. The warm rooms were now four sheets wide and included a substantial locker room. All labor except the foundation and slab was provided by member volunteers, including setting theroof trusses, roofing, and installation of a long, large "I" beam that allowed expansion without the need for pillars. Pete Leahy did the wiring and acted as project foreman. The lockers were donated. Theywere refurbished and painted by Jim Gies. Half dozen members took a week or more of vacation to work on the project, total cost was around $15,000.