On Saturday, Oct. 13, 1990, Dodge Skate Park opened to the public in the southeast section of Dodge Park in Columbus' Franklinton neighborhood. Originally known as Dodge Skateboard Park, the facility was the first public skate park in Columbus, and one of the first of its kind east of the Mississippi River.
The skate park was designed in collaboration with Frank Hawk, father of legendary professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and founder of the National Skateboard Association. It is composed of three concrete bowls of 3-, 4-, and 6-foot depths, and a unique concrete basin “snake run” joining the sections.
Skateboarders could register to use it with a $10 annual fee and a waiver. The park’s first season ended only a month later to close for the winter,
but not before 200 local people signed up.
At the park’s dedication, Mayor Dana Rinehart spoke excitedly about Dodge Skate Park’s potential to introduce the sport to more city residents. That same week, his administration introduced to City Council a proposal to outlaw skateboarding on public streets and any sidewalks abutting buildings, with violations punishable by fines and jail time.
The contrast illustrated the challenges Columbus skateboarders faced finding safe and adequate places to ride. Some built ramps in their backyards or hunted for culverts, parking garages, and other infrastructure that could serve as makeshift parks. Skateboarders like Bill Minadeo and Donny Humes petitioned the city about the need for a public skatepark as early as 1987. Their efforts paid off when Franklinton Area Commission member Carol Stewart gathered a positive response to locate a planned park in the neighborhood.
With Humes as its first supervisor, Dodge Skatepark became popular among locals and a pilgrimage site for traveling professional skaters like Ryan Wilburn, Tim Brauch, and Rob Dyrdek. Humes and other passionate locals installed ramps and obstacles for technical skating around the park using donated lumber ramps from Sunsports Skateboard indoor skate park in Whitehall after it closed in 1993. They also adapted an indoor gymnastics room in the Dodge recreation center for winter skateboarding when the outdoor park was closed.
Regular skating contests at Dodge nurtured competition among the park’s young clientele and kept it at the center of Columbus skateboard culture for years. Humes has documented Dodge’s vital role for local skaters in his long-running zine Smelly Curb.
In 2022, Tony Hawk visited for the first time and appealed to the City of Columbus to resurface Dodge Skatepark after 30 years of heavy use. In collaboration with Minadeo and his organization California Skateparks, Columbus Recreation and Parks undertook $150,000 for temporary renovations and resurfacing in 2023 that was to last four or five years.
Major restoration and expansion of Dodge Skate Park, which has experienced some flooding and drainage problems from heavy rains like those during August and September, are scheduled for 2028.
Eugene Rutigliano is a Librarian in the Local History & Genealogy Department at the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Dodge Skate Park, designed with help from legend Tony Hawk's dad, opened in 1990
