Currently a pair of roller skate costs anywhere from $20 for a child’s set to hundreds of dollars for professional wheels. And none of the offerings resemble that skate and key that you wore to skate the neighborhood.

(OK, maybe it was your parents who had the skate key. Or grand parent. Let’s not get technical.)

But do you know who actually invented roller skates and roller skating? Pick one below:

1. A inventor in Belgium put some wheels on an ice skate as part of a costume party in 1743.
2. The Westminister gun makers fashioned roller skates from left over metal during the early 1900’s.
3. In the 1840’s an European Opera used something like roller skates in a staged scene simulating ice-skating on a frozen lake.
4. All of the above.

And the answer is…..

#4, depending on which report you read and to whom you talk.

That guy in Belgium, an inventor and musician named John Joseph Merlin, really did show up with wheels stuck on ice skates where the blade would be. He took a pretty big fall, according to reports.

The Westminister Repeating Arms Company also lays claim to invention of the roller skate, this one made of metal that strapped onto your shoes. They created a large market for the sport, advertising roller skates “as good as a gun”.

And Meyerbeer’s Opera, Le prophete, put dancers on roller-skates in a winter stage scene. The intriguing skates popularized the sport throughout the Continent.

However, Dr. James I. Plimpton of Medfield, Massachusetts actually secured the first patent on the roller skate in 1863.

Personally, I think those guys who first invented the wheel probably took a stab at a Neanderthal version of the roller skate in order to get around faster. Maybe they just didn’t live to talk about it.

Now you know….or don’t.

SKATE ON!

Darla.