Tennessee summers are brutally hot and unrelentingly humid. For over 20 years, the Holiday on Ice figure skating troupe gave Nashvillians an escape into a winter wonderland for a night, as 110 skaters pirouetted on what was then the world’s largest portable ice rink.
Holiday on Ice was the brainchild of engineer and builder Emery Gilbert, of Toledo, Ohio, who created one of the first portable ice rinks that allowed his performers to skate anywhere, anytime.
First performing in 1947, they toured internationally in Mexico before coming to Nashville for the first time in early July of 1948.
“Fastest! Funniest! and greatest of all ice revues!” an ad from the June 27, 1948, edition of The Tennessean promises. “Thrills! Comedy! Novelties! Grace and Beauty!”
Shows, which typically happened every night for a five-day period in July or August, featured skaters in costumes singing, dancing and acting out skits, all on ice.
Lion’s Club of Nashville hosted Holiday on Ice at Sulphur Dell ballpark for its early performances. Through the '50s, Holiday on Ice performed in the State Fairgrounds Coliseum before becoming one of the first events held in the Municipal Auditorium in 1962.
While Gilbert started Holiday on Ice with one of the first mobile mechanical ice rinks, tinkerers had been trying to ice-skate year-round for a century.
The first “Glaciarium,” a short-lived venture in London in 1841, let users slide on an artificial ice mixture made of lard, salt and copper sulphate. Thirty years later, John Gamgee built the first mechanical ice rink (this time with real ice!) using refrigeration technology borrowed from the Australian beef trade.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Holiday on Ice brought winter to Nashville heat
