I grew up in Irvington, on the east side of Indianapolis. Every winter I looked forward to sledding down snow-covered Brown’s Hill at the southwest corner of Emerson Avenue and East Washington Street with my neighborhood friends. I lived a few blocks from Brown’s Hill, and I would trudge along the snowy waysides dragging my sled behind to the Hill. Usually by the time I got there, the Hill was mostly covered over in a smooth, snowy, icy glaze which made for a speedy ride down the Hill, across the bowl at the bottom, and up a slight embankment. If it was a really fast ride, your sled might make it up to the top of the embankment, so the runners rested on the sidewalk. After each run, it was back to the hilltop for repeat runs until the long shadows of the winter’s day signaled it was time to go home and thaw out. For Irvington kids living closer to Ellenberger Park, the wide slope east of the parking lot was the sledding hill of choice and on every snowy day the echoing muffled sounds of those sledding could be heard by residents living blocks away.
Sledding, or coasting as it was called in the years prior to the Second World War, drew boys and girls out on a snowy winter’s day seeking the slightest “hill” in the city to challenge their sledding skills. While Irish Hill, south East and Georgia Streets, and the high ground around McCarty Street, on the near south side, were favorite coasting places in the 1870s, some city streets provided enough of a slope on which to run a sled. Later outside of the city, coasting parties were held at “a beautiful spot beyond the river on the Michigan Road” and the hills at Fairview Park made long runs possible. In Irvington coasting parties were held by the “hill people” on Brown’s Hill and at the Osburn country home, Beechcroft, north of Pleasant Run. More hazardous venues like the banks along White River drew young sledders who sometimes plunged into the icy water.
In the early years of the 20th century there were few safe sledding opportunities for Indianapolis children. With the growth of the city, the small hills had been leveled by development and some people built artificial toboggan slides in their backyards by piling up as much snow as possible next to a shed and extending an incline through the flower beds, with abandoned grape arbors serving as hurdles. The city built such a slide in Military Park and boys and girls, men and women with brightly decorated sleds had a jolly time swiftly gliding down the icy incline. Even discarded boxes were used to join in the fun. Later, the city’s playground commissioner turned the “shoot the chutes” water slide at Wonderland Park on East Washington and Gray Streets into a coasting place after hours on school days and on Saturday and Sundays, while on the city’s northern fringe near the Mapleton neighborhood at the country home of attorney William A. Ketcham a “long hill which slopes down to a pond of ice-covered water,” packed with snow, made an ideal toboggan slide lighted by gas lamps providing coasters use of it day and night.
While hills in city parks and some sloping neighborhood yards provided coasting grounds, more daring boys hitched their sleds to passing wagons on slick streets and went sliding about. This form of wintertime sport became more dangerous with the coming of motorized vehicles and stretches of city streets were closed to give children an opportunity to coast safely. However, the coasters’ zeal for the pleasures of flying down an icy street or snowy hillside beside a roadway led the American Automobile Association (AAA) to report in the late ‘20s “there is no indication that there has been a material reduction in accidents to child coasters.” Motorists were alerted to their responsibility “to exercise the greatest of precautions” and parents were put on notice to “impress upon their children the dangers of sledding in areas other than those set apart specifically for this purpose.”
“Coastin’” was an ideal winter sport, but once started, a sled carries it occupant almost at will often resulting in a sledder losing control of the flying ride and ending up in a snowbank or worse careening into a boulder or a tree with resulting lacerations, concussions, or other severe injuries. Collisions among sledders frequently ended in bruised pride, or nasty dislocated or broken limbs. Some injuries, tragically, were fatal, particularly if the sled carried the rider into water or a street.
Over the years the Indianapolis park department created opportunities for children of all ages to enjoy the thrill of swooping down a frozen slope, belly-flat on a bobbing sled, flecks of ice flying in the face. In the absence of snow, the parks department often had the fire department sprinkle water on hillsides in the city parks so boys and girls could race their sleds down the icy slopes. At one time, the best coasting site in the city was the slide at Coffin Golf Course. Starting from the top of a steep hill near the clubhouse, coasters would glide over the ice for several hundred feet with colored lights illuminating the track in the evening.
As in earlier years, many beloved sledding slopes like Brown’s Hill in Irvington and Butler Hill north of the stadium on the Butler University campus have given way to development leaving only aging childhood memories. Today, happy memories are being made on any snowy winter’s day with the joyous sounds of carefree sledders ringing from the slopes of Garfield Park to Ellenberger Park; from Eagle Creek Park to Christian Park; from Soap Box Derby Hill to Southeastway Park; from Paul Ruster Park to Rhodius Park; and from Ft. Harrison State Park’s 4.5-acre slope, “one of the biggest sledding hills in the area,” as they race down the icy hills on Flexible Flyers and Snow Saucers.
