In 1936, the man who had managed Red Lodge's first-ever ice carnival took the ice again at nearly 70 and won over the crowd with what the local paper called "old-time twists and whirls on the blades." That was Ben Greenough, father of Alice Greenough, the champion bronc rider who learned to skate beside him on the town rink. Tom Kuntz of Red Lodge Ice brought that clipping to City Council last January, as Montana Independent News reported, to show that families here have been learning to skate for close to a century.
In the same presentation, Kuntz repeated what his daughter had said to him when they talked over a site away from downtown:
"A rink that you can walk to that doesn't have ice is not nearly as good as a rink that you have to drive to that has ice."
Both candidate sites for a refrigerated rink, Lions Park and a city parcel on Airport Road, are meant to fix the same thing, a skating season that natural ice keeps short. At Lions Park the longer season comes with a chiller building beside a century-old park. At Airport Road it comes with a drive up Brewery Hill.
The current rink loses to the calendar
The Lions Park rink depends on the weather, and Kuntz told Council that this limits the season to two or three months. Freeze, thaw and refreeze cycles leave the surface rough and dangerous, and the uneven ground makes getting on and off the ice harder than it should be. His pitch was a chilled slab that could stretch the season "from early November into late February, early March." Red Lodge Ice is a volunteer group. When it invited the public to its October meeting, it described the goal as a refrigerated outdoor rink with a longer, more reliable season, safer and more consistent ice, and affordable winter recreation for the community.
Kuntz put a full facility at about $1.8 million. He added that the group needs Council to choose a location before it spends money on detailed engineering and cost work. The planning is being paid for through Red Lodge's Pilot Community Tourism Grant, a state program run by the Montana Department of Commerce. Red Lodge's award is $1.25 million over two years, with a possible $2.75 million over five. That money comes from the state bed tax, according to Carbon County News. The Red Lodge Area Community Foundation's grant FAQ says the city's resort tax plays no part in it.
Everyone involved seems to agree a dependable rink is worth having. Don Kinney, a retired city planner, spent weeks working with Kuntz and with former mayor Richard Gessling to find common ground. He told Council all three agreed a permanent rink would get more people skating. "However, a location could not be agreed upon."
At Lions Park, a longer season means machinery next to the park
Lions Park offers what the town already has, plus refrigeration. At the October 7 input meeting in the Roosevelt Center, architect Andrew Houlihan of Collaborative Design Architects in Billings described a full-size, 17,000-square-foot rink on a concrete slab holding the chiller tubing. Next to it would sit a 3,000-square-foot support building for the chiller, a Zamboni and support vehicles, viewing rooms, locker rooms and mechanical rooms, Carbon County News reported. The plan would also improve ADA access, and the refrigerated slab would let a Zamboni keep the surface cleaner and safer.
That building is where the trade-off shows. Houlihan said the chiller sounds like a "continually running lawnmower" and runs around the clock whenever the rink is in use, and the rink sits 225 feet from the nearest homes to the west. One option is to house the chiller indoors to cut the noise.
The summer side matters too. Kuntz noted that a slab would fit the park's 2015 master plan. Gessling worked in Lions Park for 35 years and sees it differently. He argued that a grass surface gets used all summer, while a concrete pad might see use only a few days a year, and he proposed a leased seasonal rink with its chillers kept on a flatbed truck. At the grant's first public listening session, the Carbon County Historical Society's preservation officer pointed out that the town bought Lions Park from the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1920s. At the same session, the Farmers Market and the Carbon County Arts Guild & Depot Gallery welcomed the rink plan as a way to lengthen their own seasons.
Houlihan's own summary listed the site's strengths: its history, a spot in the heart of town, a short walk to downtown businesses, plenty of spread-out parking, and visibility from the main roads into town. Its limits were little room to expand, a changed summer feel for the park, and constraints from the surrounding neighborhood.
At Airport Road, a longer season means a drive and a winter park
The second site is a large, undeveloped city parcel at the top of Brewery Hill along Airport Road. Houlihan pitched it as more than a rink. The Nordic skiing and sledding groups also have tourism grant money assigned to their projects. He said their plans had run into some issues at Coal Miners Park and that the airport parcel would let them pair up with the rink. Beartooth Trails runs the Red Lodge Nordic Center. The Red Lodge Area Community Foundation lists it as a grant partner and describes the sledding hill and Nordic loop project as aimed at Coal Miners Park or an alternative location.
The concept looks like this:
- Ice infrastructure with 60 off-street parking spaces
- A sledding hill with a drop of about 25 feet over 120 feet
- A groomed Nordic loop of about 2,000 feet around the site, starting from the end of the parking lot, with room to extend it to the south
- A link to the airport trail, with bathrooms that could make the site a new trailhead
- Low-impact lighting
There is a scheduling idea built in as well. Houlihan described sizing the chiller to serve two sheets of ice, possibly designed so the second sheet stays off during the week and gets chilled on weekends for a big tournament. The nearest homes are about 400 feet away to the east. He named wind as one of the site's bigger problems and said planting more trees could help. His summary gave the site permanent dasher boards, new park space, room to grow, a new winter recreation area, a trail connection and mountain views. Its downsides were that most people would drive there and that it sits exposed to the wind.
This was the plan that drew the loudest applause of the night, Carbon County News reported. The Lions Park slides drew boos.
The two sites, side by side
| Lions Park | Airport Road | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting there | Walkable from downtown | Most people would drive |
| Nearest homes | 225 feet west of the rink | About 400 feet east |
| Parking | Dispersed, existing | 60 off-street spaces |
| Also on site | Existing park and its summer uses | Possible sledding hill, 2,000-foot Nordic loop, airport trail link |
| Main challenge | Chiller noise, summer use of the park | Wind exposure |
| Room to grow | Limited | Space to expand, possible second sheet |
Back in January, Kuntz himself pointed to the corner of Highway 78 and Airport Road as a workable alternative. He said that if the community could get behind a different location and the rink could have ice in November, "that would be great." Asked whether Red Lodge Ice would accept a leveled Lions Park without concrete, he said the group needs to be "all in" on one location.
Where the decision sits as skating season opens
No site has been chosen. In March, City Council approved a memorandum of understanding allowing Red Lodge Ice to prepare a Preliminary Architectural Report comparing the two parcels. The memorandum covers that study only. As the group put it before the October meeting, that authorization "does not approve construction of a new rink or determine its final location."
From here, the steps on record run in this order:
- Comments from the October 7 meeting go into the study, and Red Lodge Ice takes a recommendation to City Council.
- The proposal goes through the Parks Board before any Council vote. The mayor promised in January that it would appear on at least two more Council agendas first.
- If Council considers the alternate site, it may also need to go through the Planning Board for zoning.
Neither the October 13 nor the October 27 Council agenda listed a rink item. The October 27 agenda did include a request for proposals for parks and trails planning studies and an ordinance on the airport boundary. The foundation also expects an updated tourism grant strategy to go out for public review in November 2026. That strategy is meant to guide later grant projects.
Anyone who wants a say before the site question reaches a vote can watch the Parks Board and City Council agendas on the City of Red Lodge website, where the mayor said in January the rink would appear at least twice more before Council acts.
If you have a stake in how the rink decision plays out, whether as a skater, a neighbor of either site, or someone thinking about a home near Lions Park or Airport Road, I'm glad to talk through what these plans could mean for that part of town. Suzie Countway is here when you're ready. Let's Connect.
