Family+Lake Community | LOCAL SCOOP
LET’S GET SOCIAL:
SOUTH SHORE
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EAT. DRINK. PLAY.
Social
by Bill McCully
Last year’s opening of a unique dining and entertainment venue in Syracuse fills a special void for many who spent their youth around the lakes of Kosciusko County in the 1960s and 1970s.
T
he arrival of South Shore Social on the site of the former South Shore Golf Club near Lake Wawasee offers technology-enabled games that capture the magic and memories of the very popular North Webster amusement parks and arcades.
GAMES ON MEMORY LANE On warm summer evenings a half-century ago, North Webster was teeming with all sorts of kids—pre-teens, tweens, and full-on teenagers—who dropped their allowances at a modest set of competing amusement parks on either side of SR 13 on the north side of town. There were miniature golf courses, pinball, Skee-Ball, go-kart tracks, giant slides, trampolines, and bumper
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LAKElife Magazine May 2025
cars. It was THE place to go for kids from all across the area, including Tippy, Webster, Wawasee, and Syracuse. It was the place to see and be seen. Convincing a parent or older sibling to drop you off there meant spending hours hanging with friends or chatting up that special someone— and impressing her with mad miniature golf skills, in a (mostly) non-awkward environment. Bart Culver, formerly of North Webster, recalled that his uncle,
Dale Strombeck, opened the original park on the east side of the highway called the Putter Inn. The Putter Inn’s success led to Realtor Aaron Hinesley opening a competing park on the west side of SR 13 called Lake Trails. Culver fondly remembered, “In 1972, Mr. Hinesley rented me a dilapidated farmhouse at the corner of 13 and Epworth Forest Road, which was the first Bart’s Ski Center.” Culver remembers playing pinball at the Putter Inn (then called Adventureland) “waiting for Bart’s customers.” As most lake area residents and visitors know, those customers eventually showed up, and Bart’s became a very successful water sports institution. Adventureland changed hands in 1988 and was a labor of love for Dan and Pia Thystrup who, prior to moving to the U.S., operated an amusement park in their native Denmark and sought to operate one in America. The Thystrups (who still live in the area) made many improvements, but popularity of amusement parks waned and the park closed in the early 2000s.