Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Championship horseshoe pitching. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Now is the time to make a plan. Whether you plan to vote absentee by mail, in person at your County Auditor's Office before Election Day, or at your polling place on November 5th, it's important you take steps now to make your plan at voterready.iowa.gov. Remember Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Find more information at voterready.iowa.gov. This message presented by the Iowa Secretary of State. Frank Elroy Jackson was a farmer near Kellerton, Iowa in Ringgold County. To pass the time, he, like many others, enjoyed horseshoe pitching. But Frank Jackson took it to a new level. He first got a taste of competition in 1910, just as he was turning 40 years of age. He saw how others had tossed the horseshoes and was surprised. He had never heard of being able to hold a shoe so it would open toward the stake. Instead, he had been holding the shoe with his finger around the heelcock. At the time, games were played on dirt or sand courts with stakes, sticking two inches high off the ground and placed 38 feet apart. Frank Jackson had developed the skill of pitching a ringer over that two-inch stake, then laying a second shoe on top of the stake so opponents could not keep their ringers on. Later, the stake height was adjusted to six inches. Jackson took it seriously, using a pair of shoes he had specially made by a local blacksmith, who bent the cocks so the shoe would slide better in the sand and help him slide ringers on the stake. The first national horseshoe pitching tournament was held on October 23rd, 1915, in Kansas City, Kansas, and Frank Jackson won the title. He held it for four years and was never defeated in competition. Wearing a battered old felt hat, long sleeve shirt, skinny necktie tucked in near one of the top buttons, and unpressed pants held up by suspenders, Kellerton, Iowa's Frank Elroy Jackson became the national horseshoe pitching champion on this date in 1915. And that's Iowa-Almanac for October 23rd. There's more online at IowaAlmanac.com. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.