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·Overview -
»Archives and Collections -
·Endowment Fund -
»History -
·Meet the Staff -
·Membership -
»Mothers, Daughters, and Leaders of Oakland County -
»Museum Site -
·Museum Store -
·Exhibits, Programs and Events -
·Renting Museum Buildings and Grounds -
»Rochester Grangers Vintage Base Ball -
·Stoney Creek Schoolhouse -
·Teachers Resources -
·Wall of Donors -
·WWII Honor Roll Monument -
·Your Wedding
History
·Our Community's History -
·Blizzard of 1886 -
·Calvin H. Greene -
·Charles Chapman House -
·Chapman Pond -
·Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal -
·D.M. Ferry Company -
·Detroit-Pavilion Hotel -
·Detroit Sugar Mill -
·Detroit United Railway -
·Dillman and Upton -
·Joshua Van Hoosen's Big Barn -
·King's Cove -
·Log Cabins -
·Marsden C. Burch -
·Mills -
·One-Room Schoolhouses -
·Parke-Davis Farm -
·Railroads -
·Rock & Roll -
·Sarah Van Hoosen Jones' Childhood Pets -
·Ski Slide -
·St. Andrews Church -
·St James Hotel -
·Stony Creek or Stoney Creek -
·Subdivisions -
·Taylor-Van Hoosen-Jones Family History -
·Uriah Adams -
·Volcanoes -
·Woodward School
Ski Slide
 In 1926, the Hall Brothers of Detroit built the highest ski slide at the time in the Lower Peninsula. The 112-foot slide was built at a cost of $40,000 and was located on a hill in Bloomer Park just east of Rochester (on John R just north of Avon Road). Young men affiliated with the Detroit Ski Club from the Rochester area, called the Rochester Boys, formed a group called the Red Wing Ski Club. The Red Wing Ski Club sponsored international ski competitions in the 1920s, making the quaint town well- known outside the Detroit area. The daunting slide helped initiate Rochester as a ski jumping center throughout not only Michigan but also the United States and beyond. The slide was used for international purposes but also held ski meets and other local tournaments on Sundays.
Those brave enough to ski down the intimidating slide had to first climb a 10-foot ladder in order to get up to the shoot and then had to scale the top using a side walkway. From the top of the slide to the bottom of the hill, roughly 315-feet was covered. The slide faced north towards the Parke-Davis farm and no doubt provided the skier with a scenic view. As trees, people, and other landmarks whizzed by, this was no doubt an experience most skiers would not soon forget. If there was not enough snow to cover the slide or the snowfall was inadequate, snow was hauled in from Gaylord by the railroad.
The ski jumping center, however, was destroyed on August 10, 1934 when a wind storm and cyclone, which was believed to be the worst seen for this area, struck Rochester. Homes, businesses, trees, and also the ski slide were leveled in its wake. The ski slide was "torn down and thrown into a shapeless mass of steel." The Detroit Ski Club tried to recapture the slide's former glory and erected a second slide on the same site in 1938. It was a cable-suspension slide bought from Brighton. This slide was also blown down in a severe windstorm during the 1940s. No slide was built on the site thereafter. Today, trees cover the spot where this daredevil sport was once held.
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