This profile is in active compilation — some details are awaiting a cited source.

Winnwood Skate Center is the Northland roller rink on Winn Road, a few hundred yards from the site of Winnwood Beach — the 150-acre lake resort Frank Winn built in the 1910s and nicknamed “the Atlantic City of the West.” The resort is long gone; the skating survived. Under Luke and Anne Powell and Jim Foulk, who bought the rink in October 2021, Winnwood runs sessions nearly every night of the week and has become the metro’s centre of adult rhythm-and-dance skating, with rotating local DJs and its own dedicated adult-nights community.

Description

Winnwood Skate Center is a roller-skating rink at 4426 NE Winn Road in the Northland, owned since October 2021 by Luke and Anne Powell and Jim Foulk.12

It operates as a general-purpose rink — session skating, birthday and session parties, a private party room, full-facility rental, and STEM programmes with material for educators — but its distinguishing business is the adult session.1 KCUR reported in 2022 that Winnwood runs sessions nearly every night of the week and hosts an adult night with “music from a rotating list of local DJs.”3 The rink maintains a separate Facebook Adult Nights Group alongside its main page, which is a meaningful signal: the adult skating community here is organised enough to need its own channel.1

That community is not incidental. KCUR’s 2023 reporting on the rink described it in the owner’s words as “a home to so many people, just like any rink around the country,” in the context of a chaperone policy the ownership plainly did not want to impose: “We didn’t want to put a policy in place like this.”2 Rather than simply excluding unaccompanied young people, Luke Powell was reported to be pursuing partnerships — Big Brothers Big Sisters was named as a possibility — to pair unaccompanied youth with volunteer adult regulars.2 Winnwood was among the last entertainment venues in the metro to adopt a chaperone requirement.2

The rink also runs STEM programmes and publishes information for educators, indicating a weekday school-group business alongside the evening and weekend sessions.1

Goods and services

  • Public skating sessions — nearly every night of the week13
  • Adult nights — rhythm and dance skating with rotating local DJs, with a dedicated community group13
  • Family nights3
  • Skating lessons3
  • Session parties — party hosted during a regular public session1
  • Private party room1
  • Private full-facility rental1
  • STEM programmes and educator resources1
  • Online ticketing and an online liability waiver1

History

The rink’s name and location come from Winnwood Beach, the Clay County lake resort founded by Frank Winn, who dammed a creek on his family’s hog farm around 1913 to create Winnwood Lake and — after a 1911 trip to Atlantic City — built an 800-foot sand beach, a 40-foot boardwalk, two roller coasters, a zoo, a bathhouse and a roller skating rink.4 At its 1920s peak the resort covered 150 acres and drew up to 10,000 visitors on a Sunday, reached by interurban train across the ASB Bridge, and it was nicknamed “the Atlantic City of the West.”4

The resort’s record is also a record of exclusion: like most early-twentieth-century attractions in the metro, Winnwood Beach was closed to Black patrons, while Black musicians — Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy among them — were routinely hired to perform for white crowds. Two documented exceptions were the Wayne Miner American Legion post anniversary celebrations of 1931 and 1932, the first of which drew twelve thousand Black Kansas Citians.4

A boardwalk collapse on 4 July 1935 injured around fifty people; Winn filed for bankruptcy that autumn; his sister Mary E. Winn bought the resort out of receivership in 1936, only for a fire to destroy the bathhouse that June and a dam to burst in 1937.4 In 1942 a new investor bought the site, restored the beach and built a new roller skating rink. That rink was destroyed by fire in 1966.4 The lake was drained in 1979 and the site redeveloped as a shopping centre from the late 1980s. The Kansas City Public Library’s account closes by naming the two surviving traces: a marker at Chouteau Crossing “and Winnwood Skate Center located just to the north.”4

What is not established is the line between the 1942 rink and the present business — whether today’s Winnwood Skate Center is a rebuild after the 1966 fire, a later successor trading on the name, or an unrelated business. No source located in this pass states a founding year for the current centre. This is flagged rather than guessed.

In the recent record: a previous owner surnamed Frisby is reported to have held the rink from 2001, and Luke and Anne Powell with Jim Foulk bought it in October 2021.25

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Winnwood Skate Center — official site — asserts: phone 816-452-1171; address 4426 NE Winn RD, Kansas City, MO 64117; site navigation covering Hours & Ticket Pricing, Tickets, Calendar, Party Packages, Facility Rental, Job Application, STEM Programs, Info for Educators, Social Media and Sign Waiver; social links to Instagram, Facebook, a Facebook Adult Nights Group and TikTok; “Session Parties — Are you looking to host a party during one of our rink sessions?”; “rink nights — Want to come to our weekly rink sessions?”; “Private Facility Rental — Want to rent the whole rink for yourself?”; “Private Party Room now available! visit our party package page for details!”; ticketing handled via clubspeed.com. Primary operating proof — read directly via curl. Note: the Hours & Ticket Pricing page returns a 404 at the path linked from the navigation, so no first-party hours or prices were obtainable. (Fetched 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. KCUR 89.3 — “Winnwood Skate Center has long offered teens a safe hangout. A new chaperone rule threatens that,” 8 January 2023 — asserts: the current owners are Luke Powell, Anne Powell and Jim Foulk, who purchased the rink in October 2021; a chaperone policy requiring all patrons under 18 to be accompanied was implemented after a New Year’s Eve fight in 2022; Winnwood was one of the last entertainment venues in the Kansas City metro to adopt such a policy; Powell was working to establish partnerships, potentially with Big Brothers Big Sisters, to pair unaccompanied youth with volunteer adult regulars. Direct quotes from Luke Powell: “This place is a home to so many people, just like any rink around the country”; “We didn’t want to put a policy in place like this”; “A policy like this in place should and will mitigate that for sure.” (Fetched 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. KCUR 89.3 — “Ready to skate? Go for a spin at these Kansas City roller rinks,” 19 March 2022 — asserts: Winnwood is located north of the river and operates “nearly every night of the week”; adult night runs Tuesdays 8:30–11:30 p.m. with “music from a rotating list of local DJs”; family night runs Wednesdays 6–9 p.m. with a $30 special covering one large pizza, a pitcher of soda and four admissions with skate rental; weekend sessions are $5 admission with a $3 rental fee; lessons are $10 for adults and $5 for kids plus $5 to rent skates. The article also covers Skate City Overland Park, Skate City Shawnee, River Roll Skate Center (Riverside, MO) and B&D South Skate Center (Independence, MO). All prices and session times here are from 2022 and must not be published as current. (Fetched 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Kansas City Public Library / The Kansas City Star, “What’s Your KCQ?” — “This Kansas City beach was a destination… until disaster struck again and again,” by Michael Wells, 11 August 2021 — asserts: Winnwood was a Clay County resort founded by Frank Winn, who dammed a creek on the family property to create Winnwood Lake after the ASB Bridge opened in 1911 and interurban trains began running in 1913; an 800-foot sandy beach was created after Winn’s 1911 trip to Atlantic City; a dance pavilion and canoe rental house were added by 1913; Winn later added a three-story bathhouse, diving platform, water slides, two roller coasters, a zoo, “a roller skating rink” and a monkey island; a 40-foot boardwalk gave rise to the nickname “The Atlantic City of the West”; at its 1920s peak the park occupied 150 acres and drew upward of 10,000 visitors on busy Sundays; the park was not open to Black people as a matter of policy while Black entertainers performed for white customers, with documented exceptions for the Wayne Miner American Legion post celebrations of 1931 (12,000 attendees) and 1932, at which Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy performed; a fire damaged the dance pavilion in 1928; a 40-foot section of boardwalk collapsed on 4 July 1935 dropping around 50 people 18 feet; Winn filed for bankruptcy in autumn 1935; Mary E. Winn bought the resort out of receivership in 1936; a fire destroyed the bathhouse in June 1936; a dam burst in 1937; “In 1942, the site was purchased by a new investor who restored the beach and built a new roller skating rink”; “the roller rink was destroyed by fire in 1966”; the lake was drained in 1979; redevelopment as a shopping centre was announced in the late 1980s; “A small marker near the entrance to the Chouteau Crossing shopping center near I-35 and Chouteau Trafficway and Winnwood Skate Center located just to the north remind locals of Frank Winn’s dream of an ‘Atlantic City of the West.’” Read directly via curl — WebFetch returned HTTP 403 on this domain. (Fetched 2026-08-14.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  5. Search-surfaced summary of directory and press material (RollerSkating.com pro-shop listing, KC Parent, Yelp and IN Kansas City) — asserts: a previous owner surnamed Frisby held the rink from 2001; the facility has “a rotunda wood floor and a separate fully railed 24’ x 47’ beginner rink”; Winnwood is “nationally known as one of the best adult night places to go for rhythm and dance skating.” Surfaced in a search summary rather than read directly — the IN Kansas City article at returned HTTP 403 to both WebFetch and curl. Recorded and flagged, not asserted. Roller Skating Association listing: web.rollerskating.com ↩

Categories

On the record — ks.city/registry/winnwood-skate-center · record updated 2026-08-14