Local skating rinks and bowling alleys — past and present — come to life in a new exhibit at the Shoreline Historical Museum titled “Rolling and Bowling, Gliding and Sliding — An Historic Guide to Local Rinks and Alleys.”

The exhibit features mementos and artifacts from the more than a dozen alleys and rinks that entertained residents between north Seattle, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park and south Snohomish county from the 1930’s through the 21st century.

“It’s a little trip down nostalgia lane,” said museum executive director Vicki Stiles, “yet it’s very relevant to our lives today to see how our understanding of entertainment has evolved from those times.”

Visitors will recognize former local bowling and skating destinations as Ballinger Bowl in Lake Forest Park, which opened in 1956 and closed in 1991; Playland Roller Skating Rink, part of north Seattle’s former Playland amusement park; Lake City Bowl, which had the distinction of operating in two locations during its heyday, before burning to the ground in 1988; and Greenwood’s Leilani Lanes, which opened in 1961 and closed its doors just last month to make way for condominiums.

Though property values have driven many of the represented rinks and alleys into history, there is still plenty of enthusiasm for the sports to be found, as the exhibit reflects in businesses like Highland Ice Arena, opened in 1962 and still operated today by its founders, Dorothy and Jim Stephens; and Shoreline’s Spin Alley, opened in 1960 as Arden Lanes, still going strong after 46 years of ownership by Harley and Michele O’Neil.

The exhibit also reveals how other businesses, like Parker’s in Shoreline, have had multiple functions over the years — now a casino, Parker’s opened in 1932 as a roller skating rink and became a dance hall in 1933. Others, like a proposed bowling alley at Northgate Shopping Center, never got off the ground.

More highlights of the exhibit include costumes and memorabilia from former Ice Capades skater Linda Landon, construction photos of Lynnwood Lanes and Roll-a-Way, and a rare vintage bowling ball sizer, made by the bowling equipment giant Brunswick.

One bit of trivia unearthed by the museum’s research team was a surprising connection between the sports. “You don’t realize how very closely those two are related until you start researching the juxtaposition of bowling lanes and skating rinks,” Stiles said. In a factory housed in the basement of the former Roller Bowl at 94th and Aurora Avenue in north Seattle, “roller skate wheels were being made out of old bowling pins.”

As it turns out, before synthetic materials were used, bowling pins were generally cut from hardwoods like maple. Wooden pins took a beating from repeated contact with hefty bowling balls and were eventually retired from use. While cosmetically the pins had seen better days, the wood inside was ideal for recycling into another use — in this case, wheels for roller skates.

“We were just — let me say it — bowled over by this information,” Stiles said.