During the month of December, the Rosenberg Library is displaying items related to Victorian ice skates and a planned ice skating rink at the Crystal Palace.

Galveston – and Texas in general – is known for its warm climate, even during the winter. So how did a pair of ice skates end up in our museum collection? Read on to find out!

A Brief History of Ice Skating

Scholars trace the origins of ice skating to Finland over 4,000 years ago, although ice skating was also common in China only 500 years later. The first skates were made of bone.

In the 13^th or 14^th century, the Dutch introduced skates made of sharpened steel, and ice skating took off as a popular winter activity across Europe. In fact, it became so popular that people began to look for ways to skate year-round, though the technology for indoor rinks was not fully developed until the 19^th century.

The first artificial ice rink was the Glaciarium, which opened in London in 1876. The inventor and owner, John Gamgee, was a British veterinarian who was inspired by the refrigeration technology he saw on a work trip to America. The Glaciarium worked by freezing a layer of water over a series of copper pipes that carried a chemical freezing solution, similar to the methods used today.

Ice Skating in Galveston

The skating craze made its way to America in the mid-1800s and the first ice rink there was constructed in the old Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1879. Ice skating supposedly arrived in Galveston several decades later, with the opening of the Crystal Joy Palace, often called simply the Crystal Palace, on July 1, 1916 at Tremont and Seawall. The Crystal Palace was primarily a bathhouse, but opening advertisements like this brochure from our archives included information about additional amenities including “facilities for ice skating.” Further details were given in articles in the Galveston Daily News and the Galveston Tribune, which claimed that the rink would be the first of its kind in Texas. The 75-foot square rink was slated to be installed in the winter of 1917 on the roof of the bathhouse and would be made of artificial ice like similar rinks in New York.

Interestingly though, there is little evidence that these plans were enacted. While the Crystal Palace operated until 1941, later advertisements for the bathhouse only featured its swimming pool, and no mention of ice skating was made. Instead, the rooftop was used as a garden, open-air movie theater, and dance floor, and in 1932, it was converted into the Crystal Palace Wrestling Arena.

The Reymershoffer Family

If there were no ice-skating rinks in Galveston, why is there a pair of ice skates in our museum collection? These skates, dating from the 1890s, were donated to the Rosenberg Library Museum as part of the estate of Elsa Reymershoffer. The skates are made of steel and leather and were made in Worcester, Massachusetts by Sam L. Winslow Skate Manufacturing Co.

The Reymershoffers were a wealthy family in Galveston who owned the general commission house Reymershoffer Sons as well as the Texas Star Flour Mill from 1878-1904. The head of the family, John Reymershoffer, was from a prominent merchant family in Austria and immigrated to Texas in 1854 with his wife and children. His two sons, John Jr. and Gustav, were instrumental in helping him with the family business after they settled in Galveston in 1866. Elsa was one of Gustav’s daughters.

The family was likely able to travel to the east coast for business or holidays, where Elsa and her sisters would have had the opportunity to learn to skate. While some ice rinks offered rental skates to customers, ice skates at that time were relatively inexpensive, so it is not surprising that Elsa owned her own pair. Her collection of late 19^th and early 20^th century clothing and accessories at the Rosenberg Library gives us insight into the popular fashions and activities of the time, and although Galveston never got an ice rink of its own, it is fun to imagine 20^th century skaters enjoying views of the Gulf while skating atop the Crystal Palace.

The Treasure of the Month is located on the library’s historic second floor near the East Entrance. It can be viewed during regular library hours, 9:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 9:00 a.m. – 8:45 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For more information, please contact Rachel Hooper, Museum Curator at 409.763.8854 Ext. 125 or at museum@rosenberg-library.org.