After several years of discussion and revision, an ice rink opened in Colt Park in 1961. This was at a time when skating was still permitted on park ponds, depending on the temperature — and you would know because the newspaper published when it was allowed or prohibited.
The idea was to have the rink used for ice skating in the winter and roller skating in the summer. Kids could skate free on weekday afternoons, but had to pay a 25¢ admission fee on Sundays and some evenings. Besides general skating, there were hockey practices and games, along with lessons.
Over 14,000 people used the rink in its first two weeks of being open. It was around half the size originally planned, because of course no project here can go smoothly.
Years before, in 1916 to be exact, there had been a proposal to turn the dance pavilion into a roller rink. In 1919, this was pitched again, but with it to be used as an ice rink in winter months. Both ideas were promptly nixed.
Ice skating was already happening in the park, before the rink opening, including in 1949 when the Parks Department covered the Colt Park cinder track with water and let it freeze over. Eventually, the timing was right and the former dance pavilion was converted into the artificial ice rink.
By 1978, attendance was dwindling and there was talk of closing the rink, yet it limped along for some time. It remained in use for street hockey clinics into the 1990s.
Not that anyone talks about it, or that there is any meaningful maintenance, but there is still the ability to skate on a surface in Hartford — for free — that is very unlikely to result in drowning if it turns out the ice isn’t as solidly frozen as it ought to be.
