NEBRASKA CITY – Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce held a ribbon cutting Thursday for a new toboggan run  that has potential to double the fun compared the heavy snow winters of the past 50 years.

Community organizer Jim Kuhn designed two new sled ramps rather than the one remembered by sledders of the past.

A toboggan run first opened in Steinhart Park in in 1973, a year in which there was 19 inches of snow in December alone. The city parks and recreation sponsored a sledding contest the following  year, when Rodney Hoffman slid the farthest distance at about 200 yards.

Kuhn said the old toboggan run had a lot of users through the years.

Kuhn: “As a matter of fact I heard some people brought their kids by and saw it in a big heap and they said you just tore down our childhood. Somebody said we’re going to build you up a new childhood.”

The new platform is about a foot higher and NCTC Director Amy Allgood said two sets of steps up to the platform and a sidewalk for the return trip up the hill are also benefits.

 

Kuhn: “There has been some use believe it or not, snow or no snow, and they say it’s really fast. I told someone, if you get a big guy like me … the high school is right down there. If I get going too fast we’ve got to call the high school and tell them to move the buses ‘cause I’m coming through.”

Bill Stiles of Knutson Construction agreed.

Stiles: “I think it’s going to be a nice, fast run. It’s 10 feet high, 30 feet long. Should be able to make it all the way to the high school.”

If that unlikely triumph ever happened, it would more than double Hoffman’s 50-year record.

For now, Nebraska City’s sledding enthusiasts are waiting for a break in the snow drought.

Southeast Nebraska expects to have 25 inches of snow per season, but has not had that much if you add up all the snowfalls since 2021.

Those looking forward to snow might remember the February of 2019, when 23 inches of snow fell.

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