It only cost $7.50 per adult for both museums, and that included 4 frames of bowling. Oh yeah, a bowling museum has to have bowling lanes! But, let me get back to the beginning. It ended up being a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. It's 3 stories and 50,000 square feet. That's a lot of bowling history to soak up. The tour starts with a time tunnel documenting the earliest signs of bowling all the way up to the present. It's hard to imagine ancient Egyptians bowling. I wish I could recall most of what I read, but seriously, they had a ton of information. Way too much for me to read on my day off of work. ;-) There was a winding tunnel of information panels that include everything from how bowling was used to fend off the devil in the Middle Ages and in the 19th century used strictly as exercise (men used to just roll the balls down the lanes in rapid succession without worrying about knocking pins down...interesting...I wonder if that's where skee-ball got its origin from!)
This talks about how bowling was used as a theology lesson where you try to knock down a metaphorical Satan.
In the early 1300's, bowling was banned in France because of its detriment to society.
A few of the many different versions of the pins.
Bowling came to the states!
A champion bowling banner.
United Bowling Club logo.
United Bowling Club members from 1885 to 1915.
Plaster statue of a pinsetter, guys who used to get paid $0.03 a line to reset the pins. Fun job. (These creepy plaster statues were all over the museum.)
Betsy with one of the "pinboys".
Women were finally allowed to play! They ended up cleaning up a lot of saloons that had bowling, in order to make them more acceptable for ladies. (Men couldn't spit on the floor or swear when women were present.)
The first beer leagues were started when Prohibition was repealed!!!
It's hard to tell from the picture, but there are dozens of lanes in that bowling alley.
Giant pins that hang in the front hall/gift shop.
After the trip around the origins, and how bowling started with 9 pins and turned into 10 pins, how women were introduced into the sport, and how the size and shape of the pins changed over the years, there was a Hall of Fame dedicated to the best of the sport. A hall of bronzed men's faces, and a gallery specifically dedicated to the women of bowling. Those were some scary portraits.
The hall for men.
I feel really bad for these ladies. This is their legacy and what hangs for everyone to see. You'd think the second lady would have chosen a better position to be immortalized in!
In the basement of the museum, you can bowl a few frames in their new lanes, or take a look at how the lanes used to look before automation. We didn't have a lot of time (and we forgot to bring socks), so we didn't bowl.
There's also this bowling pin car made in 1949 from the chassis of a 1936 Studebaker. It was used to promote bowling and was driven in many parades until 1968 where it was eventually donated to the museum.
There's a theater where you can watch a few short films on either bowling or the Cardinals. I'm still not 100% sure how the Cardinals and bowling got put together, but I suppose it works. :) We didn't watch any of the films this time around.
We also stopped by the Cardinals museum and hall of fame. It was pretty cool since I had never been to it either. Lots of great memorabilia and photos.
This bench was made from official Rawlings Mark McGwire bats, bases used at Busch Stadium on September 8, 1998, when Mark hit home run #62, and balls used on September 29, 1999, when Mark hit HR #62 for the second time.
The bowling museum was pretty cool, and if I had more time, I would have liked to have read more of the info panels. I never knew there was so much bowling history, or that it originated so long ago. If you're interested in going, better make it in the near future. It'll be gone soon. If you can't make it though, you can go to http://www.bowlingmuseum.com/ and check out the info and some history that is on there!
1 comment:
So is bowling included in the Olympics then? That's what I really want to know :) Nice discovery, I never knew such a unique place existed in my own city!
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