Kiwanis Hill

Kiwanis Hill was a club-run ski slope in Ripon's Kiwanis Park. The Ripon Noon Kiwanis Club bought about 9.5 acres for the park in 1949, and that August moved a shelter to the foot of the hill as a warming house. A rope tow, driven by a tractor at the bottom, pulled skiers up; it was gone by the early 1960s.^1,2

A local teacher's master's thesis on a community ski hill, and a $5,300 bequest, led to a revival in the mid-1970s. Volunteers regraded the slope and cleared brush, and a used rope tow motor from Skyline Ski Hill in Adams-Friendship went into a small building at the top. The hill, with two 500-foot runs, was ready for the winter of 1977 but lacked snow, so it opened in the winter of 1978, with a snow gun, mostly on weekends.²

In 1980 the club asked the city to take over running the hill, but the city never did. It closed in the 1980s, needing too many volunteers each weekend and too often lacking snow; MWLSAP finds it running until at least 1986. In 1988 it was named William Mason Hill, for the club member who had driven its improvement.^1,2

TodayThe park's hill is now known as a place for sledding. (2021)²