Wagon Wheel Park was once a popular roller skating rink and dance hall in Camas

Remembering the Wagon Wheel

By Heather Acheson

March 6, 2012 12:00 am

Life

Just as Pat Mason was getting ready to open Wagon Wheel Park, the Memorial Day flood of 1948 hit. He led the construction of a 10-foot tall dike to protect his new building from flood waters.

Local youth performed in a variety of roller skating shows at Wagon Wheel Park during the 1950s.

Ed Margeson (above) works on the Wagon Wheel Park construction site in 1947. Owned by Pat Mason, a concert promoter, it was completed in 1948 and became a popular spot particularly on Saturday nights when touring bands performed.

After operating a skating rink at the American Legion Hall in Camas, in 1947 Pat Mason embarked on building his own venue for roller skating and live performances. That building, located on Northeast Third Avenue in Camas, was most recently Riverside Bowl, which closed in 2007.

Wagon Wheel Park skating rink and dance hall, located at 3010 N.E. Third Ave., in Camas, was completed in 1948. It was made of fir tree logs and included a river rock fireplace.

Roller skating was a family affair for the Carroll and Mason families. Pictured above (at far left from top) Willard and Dalphyne Carroll holding their daughter Sheri and (far right, from top) Pat and Alta Mason holding their son John.

In its heyday during the late 1940s and 1950s, the Wagon Wheel Park skating rink and dance hall was the “rockin’ place to be” on Saturday nights in Camas.While the venue located on Northeast Third Avenue on the banks of the Washougal River was a skating rink on the weekdays, on Friday nights it began its transformation.

Willard Carroll worked at the venue owned by his uncle, Pat Mason, and remembers climbing up a ladder and changing the individual sheet metal letters outside each week from the word “S-K-A-T-E” to “D-A-N-C-E.”

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