Headlines read in several Beloit Daily News articles in the
Spring of 1947 “Weeden beats Davis to win Hackett Mibs title,”
“Watson is Parker School Mibs champion,” “Hirst
wins crown at Lincoln Junior High” and “Hogan is mibs
marvel of Burdge School kids.” From 1925 to the mid 1950s
few events attracted the crowds that a marble tournament generated.
Most of the schools within the greater Beloit community, with
major backing from the Beloit Daily News, made this event an
extravaganza. In 1947 20,000 registrants from southern Wisconsin
and northern Illinois, 47 towns and 85 schools participated.
Often the date given as the beginning of the Marbles Tournament
in Beloit is 1935 with mention of Roy Chandler of Roosevelt Junior
as the first champion. This is the date when the Beloit Daily
News took over and made it the grand affair of kids, moms, dads,
schools and city officials. But there is another date and that
is 1925. This is the correct date for the official beginnings
of Beloit’s Tournament. In that year games were organized
under the auspices of the American Legion Posts and Earl L. Rice
was manager. The first champion was Will Stanlin of Wright School.
Organized marbles were about kids, fair play, and character-building,
with losers and winners shaking hands after the game and the
winner returning marbles won to his opponent. All the kids came
from schools: Merrill, Parker, Strong, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Hackett,
Brother Dutton, Riverview and many more. We can’t say how
many schools participated in the mid 1920s, but when Larry Raymer
took over in 1935, working with the Director of Beloit’s
Recreational Department - Larry Krueger - there were 13 elementary
schools, 2 Junior Highs and several schools from northern Illinois.
Each school produced a champion; the group of school champions
squared off in a competition to decide who would be the Beloit
City and the Greater Beloit Area champs. The tournament, in the
early days, was held at Summit Park and then later at Vernon
Park, a park proudly managed by John Bell, himself a mibster
from the late 19th century. The tournament of 1950, the year
Donald Floyd won, was held at Strong Stadium.
School champions played in a ten foot square of hard clay. A
ring was drawn in the clay and the marbles were arranged in the
shape of a cross within the circle. The winner was the one who
knocked out over half of the arranged marbles. Once the Beloit
city and Greater Beloit area champs emerged each prepared for
the big trip to Wildwood, New Jersey. This was the spot for the
National Championships and Larry Raymer of the Beloit Daily News
usually accompanied them.
The city of Beloit geared up for the tournament in early Spring.
The championships were held in summer. During this period the
Daily News bombarded the reading public with articles about marble
shooting and definitions of terms used in the game. Other articles
mentioned that Mibs prizes were on display in the “Krueger
store window,” a prominent sports store located on Pleasant
street; that 25,000 marbles were on hand at the Daily News selling
13 for a penny; and that two lucky “commie snipers,”
winners of the Beloit tournament, would set off for Wildwood,
New Jersey, for an all-expense paid vacation. The public was
alerted and when the championship games were held the crowds
turned out in great numbers. The crowds were certainly there
at Vernon Park for Herbie Turman in 1947.
Life
Magazine covered the local Grand Finals at Summit Park in 1940,
the year Phil Samp won it. He won it again in 1942. But it was
Herbie Turman who won everything in sight in 1947, including
the National Championship. He put the greater Beloit area on
the National Marble map, so to speak. Herbie bested four million
mibsters that year which led the National Director of the Marble
Tournaments, Ralph Shurtleff, to proclaim Beloit “The Marble
Shooting Capital of the U.S.A.” Beloit usually had its mibsters
rank in the top 10% at the Nationals. 1947, though, now that
was a year for Beloit and Herbie. Fred Bull, our maintenance
man here at the Society, remembers playing Herbie at Riverview.
He says somewhat disappointedly but with a smile “I didn’t
even get to shoot.” He also remembered the callouses on
the champs knuckles.
The Nationals (which started in 1923) gathered the 75 best players
in America and over the years these tournaments were either played
at Atlantic City, Cape May, Ocean City or Wildwood-By-the Sea,
New Jersey. Every one of the 75 received a new bicycle - A Roadster.
Three hotels were used at Wildwood for the tournament and they
were the Adelphi-Witte, the Dorsey or Dayton. The champs from
Beloit along with other American city champs enjoyed deep sea
fishing, horse back riding, swimming, boating, a swanky hotel
and all the fried chicken, apple pie and ice cream they could
eat. For all of those who competed the Marble Tournament was
a grand event, for the champs who made it to the Nationals it
must have seemed a little piece of heaven. Beloit sent its fair
share of youngsters to the east coast and they, one and all,
did their city proud while there.
The Marble Tournaments ended in Beloit in the mid 1950s. The
event had grown in popularity and size and commensurate with
that it grew in cost and effort. It took three months of a Beloit
Daily News staffer’s time and schools were spending hundreds
of dollars on floats for parades. But while they lasted the Marble
Tournaments proved the greatest attraction for crowds Beloit
has ever seen
| Roy Chandler |
1935 |
| Donald Briggs |
1936 |
| Frankie Turman (Herbie's older brother) |
1937 |
| Mike Fuller |
1938 |
| Mike Fuller |
1939 |
| Phil Samp |
1940 |
| Jackie Walsh |
1941 |
| Phil Samp |
1942 |
| World War II |
|
| Tom Christopherson |
1946 |
| Herbie Turman |
1947 |
| Dick Woods |
1948 |
| Claire Lawver |
1949 |
| Donald Floyd |
1950 |