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. 

Photo looking down lanes

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.

Photo of ball return

BALL RETURN

Ours is a gravity-fed ball return. It works amazingly well!

Photo of pin setter

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.

Photo of chrome

SHINY CHROME

These pin setting machines are wrapped in shiny chrome–very cutting edge, in their day.

Photo of boy setting pins

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.

Photo of twin lanes

A TALE OF TWO LANES

Our bowling alley has two matching lanes, and shares the same return.