The $2 skis that invented water skiing

On June 28, 1922, 18-year-old Ralph Samuelson managed a few yards of something nobody had quite done before: he stood on homemade skis and skimmed across Lake Pepin, the wide Mississippi River lake beside Lake City, Minnesota. He started from an aquaplane, a flat board already being towed by a boat, so Samuelson himself did not count the ride as the finished trick. But the date matters. That short, awkward glide is the first confirmed step in the invention of water skiing. 1 2

The origin story has the exact right level of teenage logic. Samuelson had watched kids slide downhill on barrel staves in winter and wondered, "If you could ski on snow, why not on water?" 1 That is the whole sport in one question: less laboratory breakthrough than lake-town dare.

Samuelson tried barrel staves first, and they did not give him enough flotation. Snow skis failed too. The solution was bigger, stranger, and very cheap: two pine boards from a local lumberyard, each eight feet long, nine inches wide, and priced at $1. 3 2

He softened the front ends in his mother's copper kettle, bent the tips upward with a vise, and left the boards clamped for two days. His sister Harriet helped paint them white; scrap leather became foot straps; 100 feet of window sash cord became the tow rope; a blacksmith made the iron-ring handle. 2 1

The towing setup was just as improvised. Samuelson's brother Ben drove a clamming boat powered by a modified Saxon truck engine at about 15 miles per hour. 2 Samuelson later remembered the mood around Lake Pepin with a line that still sounds like the correct reaction: "Everyone, of course, thought I was completely nuts." 4

The June 28 ride was real, but Samuelson wanted a start that did not depend on the aquaplane. For five days, he kept testing different ways to get out of the water. When he held the ski tips up and leaned backward, the boat finally pulled him onto the surface. 2

That cleaner breakthrough came at 4:11 p.m. on July 2, 1922, the day before Samuelson turned 19. USA Water Ski & Wake Sports describes that posture, tips up and body leaning back, as the basic deep-water start still used by water skiers. 2

The distinction is the trivia hook. June 28 gives the invention its first splash; July 2 gives it the technique. 1 2 A sport that now looks polished on summer lakes began as a teenager being dragged through the Mississippi River until the geometry finally worked.

Once Samuelson could stay upright, Lake Pepin became his stage. He performed for shoreline crowds, donated ticket money to help cover boat gasoline, and became a summer water-carnival attraction around Minnesota and Florida. 2 3

On July 8, 1925, he completed what USA Water Ski & Wake Sports calls the first water-ski jump, using a modified 4-by-16-foot floating diving platform as the ramp. The first try sent him headfirst off the five-foot edge; the second worked after he greased the ramp with lard. 2 On August 27, 1925, he rode behind a World War I-era Curtiss flying boat at about 80 miles per hour, giving the new sport its first high-speed stunt. 3

There was also one very expensive omission: Samuelson never patented the invention. Fred Waller of Huntington, New York, received U.S. Patent No. 1,559,390 for water skis on October 27, 1925, under the name "Dolphin Akwa-Skees." 1 3

Samuelson did not seem crushed by that. "I never thought it mattered," he later said. "I knew I was the first one and that is all I cared about." 4

Samuelson spent decades outside the spotlight. In the 1960s, a vacationing newspaper reporter noticed his skis hanging in a Lake City municipal boathouse, and the renewed attention helped push the U.S. water-skiing establishment to recognize him. 4 In 1966, the American Water Ski Association identified Samuelson as the first water skier of record, and the USA Water Ski & Wake Sports Foundation later placed him in its Hall of Fame. 3

The centennial tribute landed back at the lake. On July 2, 2022, Lake City unveiled a life-size bronze statue of Samuelson at Ohuta Park, timing the ceremony for 4:11 p.m. to match the unassisted start 100 years earlier. 5 2

That statue makes sense because the best part of the story is not polish. It is the opposite. A kid bought two $1 boards, boiled them in a kitchen kettle, tied himself to a boat with window cord, and found a new way for people to fall into a lake before they learned how to fly across it. 2