Heather Curling Club

About Heather Curling Club

Heather Curling Club: Mapleton, Minnesota’s Cradle of Curling

Heather Curling Club in Mapleton, a small town in Blue Earth County south of Mankato, is the oldest established curling club in southern Minnesota, and a 1962 highway marker named Mapleton the state’s “Cradle of Curling.” Scottish immigrants were curling here around 1857, sliding flat irons on frozen waterways and sweeping with saplings. The club went through several names, the Blue Earth Valley Burns Club in 1866 and the Maple River Curling Club in 1888, before becoming the Heather Curling Club in 1904, when a two-sheet indoor rink went up near the grain elevator.

Volunteers built the present four-sheet rink on West Silver Street in 1950. The season runs seven days a week from January 1 through March 30, with men’s, women’s and junior leagues as well as open ice for the public.

Mapleton has sent four curlers to U.S. national teams. The best known is John Landsteiner, who played lead on the U.S. team that won Olympic gold at the 2018 PyeongChang Games; his father Steve and grandfather Don are competitive curlers too.