A California import, skateboarding appeared in Milwaukee in the 1960s and rose in popularity in the 1970s. Local authorities perceived skating as dangerous and wasted little time banning it from most public places. According to contemporary accounts, this led to confrontations between skaters and authorities, which supported skateboarding’s outsider image. Nevertheless, skaters careened down the smooth ramps of local schools until campus police intruded, while hotshots performed tricks at “the spot” in Greenfield Park. The famous concrete pools at Turf Skatepark in Greenfield functioned as skateboarding’s area headquarters, attracting the nation’s top teams and local youth alike through the mid-1990s. Forty years on, skateboarding’s rebellious spirit remains, but the growing number of well-maintained skate parks in the area attest to its increasingly mainstream status.