Topics in Kansas History: Community & Daily Life

Essay on Sports

Kansans today enjoy baseball, basketball, football, hiking, horseback riding, racquetball, road racing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track, and numerous other activities. Many of these sports first became popular in the state in the late 19th century, when Americans discovered leisure time.

Bicycling was an extremely popular activity in the 1890s. Bicycle clubs were found in many Kansas towns. Inferior rural roads had long hindered all forms of travel and bicylists were especially impacted. Perched on their high wheelers, cyclists were forced to negotiate the same ruts and mud. In 1890, they joined farmers in actively lobbying for road improvements.

Kansans began enjoying tennis in late-19th century Kansas. Even the Capuchin Monks (an order of the Catholic Church) enjoyed playing tennis. The Capuchin Monastery was established in Victoria by the mid-1870s.

Roller skating became a favorite activity in the United States in the late 19th century. An indoor roller skating rink opened in Dodge City on April 6, 1885, the peak year for the skating craze in America. Roller skating received mixed reviews. On the opening of the new rink, the Dodge City Globe commented: "A good deal of just and unjust criticism is given on the roller skating mania. . . . [Patrons] would find far more rest, if not recreation, in the reading of some valuable book and in acquiring information upon current events about which they are in woeful ignorance. What percentage of the occupants of the floor of a skating rink can give you a very lucid idea of the causes that have led to the Egyptian war, or to the Franco-Chinese struggle, or of any of the reciprocity treaties discussed in our last congress, or upon the silver question. . .

"Hence it is the intellectual pauper who is the patron of the skating rink. And yet, properly used, this amusement has its beneficial end. The trouble is, it is not so used."

Roller skating was revived in the 1930s as a popular pastime.

Back to Topics in Kansas History: Community & Daily Life: Sports.