Seward's Skating Shack

I took this picture on June 2, 1951 when we had floods in Seward on the Big Blue River. A discussion last Saturday at the Dedication of Independence Landing prompted my search for this picture and an attempt to trace the ice skating history in Seward. The building in the foreground (in the water) was an Ice Skating Shack with a Rink to the left of the building. I remember skating there in the late '40's. We were fortunate in having Jane Graff and Harold Davisson here in Seward who wrote and published a considerable amount of material about Seward, it's people and businesses from it's settlement until the early 1990's. Jane had continued to collect information and I understand that a daughter may publish some of it in the future. . We visited with Marian (Jane's older sister) during Social Hour at Church this morning and confirmed the existence of a skating rink on a bayou south of town prior to this location. The 1951 flood was what prompted Hughes Bros. to build a dike to protect their plant from the river. A new pond was dug near the swimming pool to obtain fill material for building the dike and is where the Shack sat for many years.  It is at that location that Independence Landing will be built. The old shack has been moved to a farmstead on the City outskirts. After Hughes Bros. initial efforts back in the '50's, the Corps of Engineers  got involved and completed the protection from floodwater that we enjoy today.