LONGVIEW, Texas — Just outside a Longview High School art classroom, teacher Jeffrey Hull and his Art Car Club students are working hard to revitalize a piece of Longview’s history - a massive roller skate car - to its original form.
For over two decades, the skate-shaped auto sat on top of a pole at the former Rollercade skating rink, located at Eastman Road's intersection with Tryon Road and Eden Drive in Longview.
For residents in the area before 1992, the skate was often seen driving around the city and participating in local parades, while serving as a mobile advertisement for the roller rink.
Hull, who came to Longview in 1985, remembers seeing the skate on the streets, and when Rollercade shut its doors down, his efforts to get the car for his class amped up.
With the help of a crane and trailer, he cut the skate off the pole in 2016. He learned the car was placed on the pole in 1992 without an engine. So, the first thing needed was to get the auto mechanically running.
Dan Larson, who was Hull’s auto professor at LeTourneau, helped get the skate car running in time for the Christmas parade in 2019, where the car made its return to the roadways.
Now, two senior Art Car Club members Harrison Taylor and Chloe Hamilton are hard at work afterschool every Tuesday color sanding the skate back to its original blue and yellow lettering.
“We promised the owner that we would keep it a Rollercade car because it is kind of an icon,” Hull said. “Our suspicion is that they painted it white and red to stand out more when it was on the pole and when it was a sign for Rollercade. We thought if we’re going to restore it, let's go back to the original.”
Hull said it’s a great feeling to preserve this piece of local history, and noted the skate car was featured in the 2011 movie, “Skateland,” which starred Longview native actor Heath Freeman.
“The people who have been in town for a long, long time - decades - saw this on the street. Then, all of the people who have been in Longview since 1992 knew it as the sign on top of Rollercade,” Hull said. “It is an iconic piece for the city of Longview. It is pretty cool to be the caretaker of that and getting it back into shape.”
Taylor, who was part of the first group working on the car, said he’s very grateful for the chance to work and recalled stories from his grandmother about how popular the skating rink was.
“I would see that roller skate (on the sign) and I thought it was really cool,” Taylor said. “I never thought it was a car and I never thought I’d get the chance to touch it, let alone be part of the restoration process.”
Some of the biggest lessons he’s gained through this restoration is the value of meaning and doing something bigger than himself.
“I really did have a connection with this as a child. When I was actually able to work on it, I felt something for that,” Taylor said. “I felt, not just a sense of nostalgia for myself, but I felt like I was doing something for the town and it felt good to do something for someone or something bigger than myself.”
Taylor said he’s ridden in the car before and it does require some balance. That’s because the interior still needs work at this time.
“Things in there are still kind of bare bones, but as time goes on, we hope to have more done with the interior to make things a little bit more suitable for passengers,” Taylor said.
For Hamilton, this is the first car she’s gotten to work on and she said it’s been fun to work on a skate car, which is something she’d never seen before.
“We’re really just trying to restore it because it is a piece of history for this town, and so we’re just trying to restore a little piece of history for Longview,” she said. “I think it’s really cool that something I’m working on in high school is going to be around for a long time and it’s going to be really big for younger generations.”
Hull estimated since getting the skate off the pole, about 30 to 40 students have been a part of the project.
Taylor and Hamilton are sanding away to get the skate back to its original coloring for the Houston Art Car Parade on April 9.
To help with the work, the club is seeking photos of the skate from before 1992. Right now, the team just has one photo of the car from across the street.
Anyone with photos should email Hull at jhull@lisd.org.
