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Ralph Samuelson

Inventor of water skiing (1902–1977)

PersonDied aged 75humanQ3929806

Also known as Ralph Wilford Samuelson

Born: July 2, 1902
Died: August 28, 1977
, August 1977
Place of death: Pine Island
Citizenship: United States
Occupation: inventor
, farmer

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Ralph Wilford Samuelson was the inventor of water skiing, which he first performed in the summer of 1922 in Lake City, Minnesota, just before his 19th birthday. Samuelson was already skilled at aquaplaning—standing on a board while being pulled by a powerboat—but he hoped to create something like snow skiing on the water. Lake Pepin, a wide portion of the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin, was the venue for his experiments.

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20 statements · 0% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Sex or gender: male
Given name: Ralph
Family name: Samuelson
Released: July 1, 2022

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7 identifiers linking Ralph Samuelson across the web's reference databases

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Source last edited October 1, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). Ralph Samuelson (Q3929806). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/ralph-samuelson-Q3929806