Vintage Bowling Alley
These vintage bowling lanes were built in about 1913, when the original Fort Atkinson Club came into being. In 2017, we raised about $10,000 in a capital campaign, to repair the damaged lanes and gutters. It is now fully functional, and is used during parties, events, and even historic bowling alley tours! Photos by Kevin Hong.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Have you ever seen a bowling alley with this much natural light? What’s even better is that these large windows look out onto our patio and the Rock River beyond.
BALL RETURN
Ours is a gravity-fed ball return. It works amazingly well!
SEMI AUTOMATIC
Our pin setting machines are considered “semi-automatic”. This means that they require a person (usually a teenager) to sit up on a bench, behind the pin area, with their feet up, and wait for the ball and the pins to land in the trough.
SHINY CHROME
These pin setting machines are wrapped in shiny chrome–very cutting edge, in their day.
SETTING THE PINS
Once the pin boy (or girl) gets the all-clear, they set the pins in the holders. After that, they push down on the bar behind, and wait for the pins to stop moving before they raise the machine back up.
A TALE OF TWO LANES
Our bowling alley has two matching lanes, and shares the same return.