Women’s History Month: Remembering Beaver Dam’s speed queen

The young woman from Beaver Dam was at the starting line. If she finished first, she would be world champion. It was 1938 and the young woman was far from the frozen field at Buckhorn Corners where she first learned to skate as a little girl.

The young woman was in Oslo, Norway, competing for the world speed skating crown.

Skates tied tight, focused, determined after years of winning race after race, she stepped to the line to the roar and clamor of spectators. To her left and right, women, as talented as she, with blades of their own tied to their own fleet feet. Laila Shou Nilsen, a Norwegian, was in lane one. Verne Lesche, a Finn, was in lane two. Norwegian Synnove Lie was in lane three. In the middle of the competitors, Madeline “Maddy” Horn, the only woman from the United States in the race; Maddy Horn, “Beaver Dam’s Speed Queen of the Ice,” as the town’s proud mayor once called her. The others: Undis Blikken, Gonne Donker, Ruth Hiller, and Edith Hildegard Kleven stood poised at the starting line, also, eager to sprint to glory.

The gun sounded. The 500 meter race began. Horn screamed across the ice. A fierce competitor, she skated in a bumpy style, swinging her arms wide, trying to avoid elbowing the fellow racers.

She raced and raced hard. Most all of the women fell back behind her. The world championship would be between her and Nilsen. No one was going to catch them. They raced and raced harder. At the finish line, Horn was clocked at 51.2 seconds, a half second behind Nilsen. It was a win, regardless. No American had ever skated better.

Two years later, Maddy Horn would be the only woman speed skater chosen to represent the United States in the 1940 Olympics. Unfortunately, those games were canceled when the U.S. entered World War II.

By the end of her career, she had won more than 300 medals and 46 trophies.

Born June 10, 1911 in Michigan, her family moved to Beaver Dam when she was a baby. Her father was a cheesemaker in town.

Learning to skate at the age of 10 on her family’s frozen property, the first time her blades saw their first rink was a flooded tennis court at Wayland Academy. She liked it. The school’s coach did, too.

She ended up at Beaver Dam HIgh School, graduating in 1934. She took to sports there. She was on the softball team. She was a tennis whiz. She was a good swimmer. She played basketball. She played volleyball. She also skated — a fiery blur across ice.

The closest indoor ice rink was in Chicago. Horn had to make do with what she had. What she had was Tahoe Park. What she had was Beaver Dam Lake. She sprinted on stretches of lake ice. She liked it best by Skunk Island. She skated, and skated, and skated.

Discovered by a coach with the Oconomowoc Skating Club, she skated, and skated, and skated.

A Wausau Daily Herald article dated January 27, 1936 read, “Maddy Horn took home the Kickbusch-Vanity trophy for winning the women’s senior events. She made a clean sweep in them.”

The La Crosse Tribune’s January 24, 1937 headline read, “Maddy Horn Breaks National Skating Record.” The article started, “A national record breaking performance by Maddy Horn, Beaver Dam, Wis., spiced the first day’s racing in the second annual Great Lakes speed skating carnival.”

Horn was at the top of her game in 1937. Setting three records, she won the national indoor and outdoor championships, the North American Outdoor, the Canadian Outdoor, the Southwestern, the Missouri Ozark, the Great Lakes, and the 10,000 Lakes.

She retired soon after the 1940 Olympics were canceled. She was the most decorated woman in American speed skating history.

During the war she worked at the Allis-Chalmers plant in West Allis. After the war, she worked in youth recreation programs for the Oshkosh Recreation Department. In 1955, she became director of activities at Winnebago County Hospital.

She was inducted into the National Speedskating Hall of Fame in 1966. She died of cancer in 1971. She’s buried in Beaver Dam, at Oakwood Cemetery.