Casino Block
Casino Block circa 1970
Built: 1884
Architecture Style: Late-19th Century Commercial Style
Architect/Builder: George Wilkinson
In the 1880s, when the Casino Block was constructed, “casino” did not refer exclusively to places where gambling took place. Instead, it was a broader term for a house of entertainment.
The entertainment in the early decades of this building included a theater, a bowling alley, and, most notably, a roller rink.
Nowadays, roller skating is most closely associated with the disco-adjacent rinks of the 1970s, but roller skating history goes back much further than that.
Roller skates were first used in the 1740s, and slowly gained popularity across the next 140 years, until they finally achieved widespread international use in the 1880s.
When the Casino building was completed in 1884, its roller rink instantly became a popular destination for the people of Red Wing.
Famous skaters traveled to Red Wing to entertain adoring audiences, and the Casino held ladies nights and local competitions for both children and adults. One particular competition, known as a “candle race,” awarded a prize to the first skater to complete 25 laps of the rink while carrying a lit candle.
Skating was so popular that an 1884 Advance-Republican article stated, “It will soon come to a point where we shall all work, write, eat, drink and skate on roller skates.”
One year later, following a redesign of the building, the Casino rink was closed. In the decades to come more rinks would open, including another that appeared in this building in 1905. In the early-1900s the now-demolished music hall on the corner of Main and Plum streets had a rink, and from the 1920s through the 1940s the Armory building had one of its own.
The 1940s also saw Red Wing’s next big leap into the roller skating world. Paul Riedell had worked at the Red Wing Shoe Company, but in 1945 Paul and his wife Sophie formed Riedell Shoes Inc. to make boots for ice and roller skates.
For decades, Riedell has been based on the edge of town near A.P. Anderson Park, but their first location was in the Red Wing Furniture Factory that stood where Family Fare now stands. After a couple of years in that spot they moved to a building that is now the site of the St. James Hotel’s parking ramp. They moved to their current location at the end of the 1950s.
80 years after their founding, Riedell is still producing quality skates.
Riedell Shoes Inc.’s second location, located next to the St. James Hotel
