Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Golden Gate To Fun lay about six miles north of Sleepy Eye, down Golden Gate Road off Highway 4. Melvin and Carol Speckman had bought the valley for their duck and goose hatchery, and when that business grew large and market swings made it too much, they turned to recreation.1
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Memories
Skied Golden Gate To Fun, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Golden Gate To Fun
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1966 · 65.8 mi away · MinnesotaA rope-tow ski area in Orono, west of Minneapolis, that opened in 1966, closed after the 1976–77 season and briefly reopened in 1979.
- 1966–1972 · 66 mi away · MinnesotaA rope-tow ski area in a valley beside Buffalo Lake, near Buffalo in Wright County, that ran from 1966 until it closed for financial reasons in 1972.
- Opened 1963 · 66.9 mi away · MinnesotaA rope-tow ski and golf park in Eden Prairie, near Minneapolis, that opened in 1963 and was last mentioned in 1979.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Golden Gate To Fun lay about six miles north of Sleepy Eye, down Golden Gate Road off Highway 4. Melvin and Carol Speckman had bought the valley for their duck and goose hatchery, and when that business grew large and market swings made it too much, they turned to recreation. Starting in 1970 they added a campground, trout ponds, a one-acre swimming pool, mobile-home sites, snowmobiling, a tubing hill and ski runs. The name came from Golden Gate, a settlement with mills, a store and a post office that once stood nearby.1
In October 1975 the Minneapolis Tribune described two rope tows on the ski runs and a third on the separate tubing hill, a vertical the writer put at about 200 feet, skiers from towns within about 50 miles, and plans to use the pool as a cooling pond for snowmaking that winter. MWLSAP dates skiing from about 1975, with a question mark, lists five rope tows in 1978 and a vertical of 150 feet, and last finds the area mentioned in 1987.1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Minneapolis Tribune · Your weekend: Sleepy Eye, Minn. (Ben Kern, Minneapolis Tribune, October 26, 1975), clipping on MWLSAP
- 2Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Golden Gate To Fun
Photos
No photographs of Golden Gate To Fun we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Golden Gate To Fun, in their own words.
Facts
Location
44.4016° N · 94.7053° W · Minnesota
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain