The origin of snowmobiling has been discussed between Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada. It’s actually none of these, but the first snowmobile built in Wisconsin was called a Motor Toboggan in 1917 by Carl Eliason of Sayner Wisconsin. That motor toboggan was powered by a 2 1/2 hp using a motel T radiator to cool an outboard motor and was steered with ropes. This motor toboggan was also the first snow machine that was ever marketed and went into production in1922. Between 1922 and 1926 Eliason produced 40 of these machines built by hand and not one was the same. In 1927, Eliason also patented the first workable single-track snowmobile and in 1932 built a much better model using an Indian motorcycle engine that could reach 40 mph.

Jump ahead to the late 1960s and it was estimated that 1 in every 100 people in Wisconsin has a snowmobile. In the winter of 1967, Eagle River held the first World Championship snowmobile derby, and that same year Rhinelander had a Hodag cross country race. Both of these events attracted thousands of spectators and the following year attendance almost doubled. Also in 1968, there were over 1500 miles of snowmobile trails in 61 counties across Wisconsin and close to 1.5 million acres of open snowmobiling.

Today there are over 25,000 miles of groomed trails in Wisconsin and the World Championship snowmobiling derby features over 1400 racers, 60 vendors and over 30,000 spectators. So where was the first sled built? In 1905 a motor sleigh was produced with 4 runners and was powered by a 4 1/2 horse air cooled engine, that could reach 15 mph, but the FIRST machine designed with tracks and front skis for traveling over snow was built in Waterville Maine in 1908 for hauling logs.