Roller Skate Through History

Various methods of travel are also significant forms of entertainment and exercise. People ride bicycles to work or for a rigorous weekend exercise; skateboards speed kids to classes or challenge their balance with special tricks. While skateboarding is a relatively young form of travel and entertainment, you might be surprised to learn that roller skating has been around since the 1700s.

Roller skating as a vehicle for recreation, sport, and transportation has two basic designs. First, are the traditional quad skates, in which two wheels are set side by side in the front of the skate and in the back; and second are inline skates, in which all four wheels are in a straight line down the middle of the skate. The first recorded roller skating venture took place on a London stage in 1743, though the inventor is unknown. Jean-Joseph Merlin, the first inventor who is known developed a simplistic style of inline skates in 1760. They were very similar to today’s inline skates, but hard to maneuver, limiting the skater’s options to going straight or making very wide turns.

The first quad skates were designed in 1863 by James Leonard Plimpton in New York City. To improve maneuverability, the skates contained rubber cushions that allowed skaters to pivot by leaning to one side, which essentially whizzed by their inline competitors. This new strategy was so well received that the first skating rink opened in 1866 with Plimpton’s support, in Rhode Island.

A decade later roller skates began seeing great improvements. One of the most significant advances in roller skates took place in 1876, in Birmingham, England. William Bown designed an axle that kept the fixed and moving bearing surfaces apart. He worked with Joseph Henry Hughes, who had developed a roller bearing race for bicycle and carriage wheels in 1877. Combined they developed the wheels that are still used in modern day skates and skateboards. Another significant improvement came in 1876 when the toe stop was created. This allows skaters to stop quickly by tipping the skate forward onto the brake and is still utilized on most quad skates.

Roller skates saw their first American production boom in the early 1880s. Micajah C. Henley in Richmond, Indiana produced thousands of skates on a weekly basis, which were the first skates with adjustable tension. Then in 1884, Levant M. Richardson patented the use of steel ball bearings which allowed skaters to increase speed easier with a reduced level of friction. Following these early developments, the design of quad skates has remained relatively unchanged.

With their new design, quad skates dominated the skating market for decades. They remained the popular style until the late 1980s/early 1990s when inline skates became popular, though a resurgence in their use has occurred in recent years due in part to the popularity of roller derbies, a predominately female contact sport, and jam skating, a combination of dance, breakdance, and gymnastics.