Unusual Pastimes in Clark County

People over the cen­turies have always sought out amuse­ments to occu­py their leisure times.  Many of these pas­times have long van­ished, and some might seem a lit­tle sur­pris­ing today.

Games or con­tests were the most com­mon amuse­ments in ear­ly Clark County.  Wrestling, run­ning and jump­ing con­tests were com­mon­place at that time, and horse rac­ing may have been the most pop­u­lar.  Two oth­er games have come and gone: ninepins, a type of lawn bowl­ing with nine wood­en pins set in a dia­mond for­ma­tion, and “fives,” a type of hand­ball with play­ers tak­ing turns hit­ting a ball against a wall with their hands (“fives”). It may be more accu­rate to say that these last two have evolved and moved indoors.

“Throwing long bul­lets” prob­a­bly holds the claim to the most unusu­al game of the peri­od.  The object was to see who could throw a heavy rock (the “bul­let”) a spec­i­fied dis­tance in the fewest chances.  If avail­able, the game could be played with can­non­balls, which could be thrown or rolled.  The game came over from Britain in the ear­ly 1700s and was pop­u­lar all over the colonies. 

The con­tes­tants agreed on a dis­tance, usu­al­ly a mile or so, and play would com­mence in the mid­dle of local streets and roads.  Games often drew large crowds and heavy bet­ting on the out­come. As thor­ough­fares became more heav­i­ly trav­eled, the game even­tu­al­ly became a pub­lic nuisance. 

Citizen com­plaints final­ly led to the game being out­lawed every­where.  At their March ses­sion of 1805, the Winchester trustees “Resolved that all per­sons be pro­hib­it­ed from throw­ing Bullets with­in the Bounds of the Town of Winchester under the penal­ty of three dol­lars for every such offense to be recov­ered and applied as fines usu­al­ly are in such cases.”

“Shooting anvils” was a pop­u­lar 19^th cen­tu­ry pas­time.  No, this didn’t involve tak­ing tar­get prac­tice on a blacksmith’s anvil.  Shooting anvils usu­al­ly occurred dur­ing cel­e­bra­to­ry events like the Fourth of July.  It was enjoyed for the loud boom and for the spec­ta­cle of see­ing a heavy anvil launched high into the air.

Here’s the process involv­ing two anvils:  First, one anvil was placed upside down on the ground, ide­al­ly in a lev­el, unob­struct­ed area.  A large mea­sure of black pow­er was spread over its base, and then anoth­er anvil was set in place on top of it, this one right-side up.  A long met­al rod, which had had its tip heat­ed red-hot in a fire, was used to touch off the pow­der, while keep­ing the indi­vid­ual at a safe dis­tance.  Upon igni­tion and a loud report, the top anvil (the “fly­er”) would be launched high into the air.

The prac­tice had its haz­ards.  A spark could pre-ignite the black pow­der harm­ing the ones plac­ing the anvils.  Also, anvils could explode send­ing dead­ly shrap­nel fly­ing in all direc­tions.  Finally, send­ing heavy anvils fly­ing through the air could result in bystanders being crushed.

Anvil shoot­ing sur­vived into the ear­ly 1900s in Clark County, when young peo­ple would shoot anvils after they fin­ished strip­ping tobac­co each year.  After the Armistice was signed in 1918 end­ing World War I, the Winchester Sun report­ed, “The cus­tom of shoot­ing the anvil was res­ur­rect­ed and loud explo­sions were heard through­out the evening.” The prac­tice sur­vives today with dare­dev­ils launch­ing 50-pound anvils 100 feet in the air.  You can watch on YouTube!

In the first half of the 20^th cen­tu­ry many peo­ple in Winchester enter­tained reg­u­lar­ly.  The soci­ety pages in old issues of the Sun are filled with reports of par­ties com­plete with guest lists.  There were usu­al­ly games fol­lowed by a buf­fet or sit-down din­ner.  Surprisingly, these events often includ­ed 20 or 30 people.

There were reg­u­lar gath­er­ings at card par­ties; those most often men­tioned in Winchester were euchre clubs and bridge clubs.  Also pop­u­lar were forty-two clubs.  Forty-two is a domi­no game played like a card game.  It was invent­ed in Texas in 1887 by two young men whose Protestant fam­i­lies frowned on card-play­ing.  The game involves bid­ding, trumps and trick tak­ing; it is sim­i­lar to pitch but played with domi­noes instead of cards.

Forty-two par­ties became fash­ion­able all across the coun­try.  In Winchester the fad last­ed until the 1920s.  However, the game is still pop­u­lar in Texas today.