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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(KRT)
ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. - For years, rural Athens, Ohio, has hosted the National Jigsaw Puzzle Competition. In Wildwood, N.J., sharpshooters visit the National Marbles Hall of Fame. And St. Louis has the International Bowling Museum & Hall of Fame.
So perhaps it was just a matter of time before growing St. Charles County staked its claim to another of America's enduring pastimes.
In Quail Ridge Park near Wentzville, St. Charles County dignitaries tossed out 12 gold-plated horseshoes Friday to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new attraction: the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association Hall of Fame Museum.
"It's a barbecuing, horseshoe-pitching, beer-drinking kind of activity that everyone can enjoy," said County Councilman Joe Brazil, whose district encompasses the park. "We're lucky to have it right here on the major highways in St. Charles County, where everyone is going to see it."
Earlier this year, the National Horseshoe Pitchers Foundation forged a deal with the St. Charles County Council to move its headquarters from Joelton, Tenn., to a new $625,000 indoor facility in the park.
The foundation will pay for the building, and the county will spend about $300,000 on a parking lot, entry road and landscaping and also charge $100 a year in rent for use of the 3-acre parcel of park land. Completion is projected by the end of the year.
"It's a real shot in the arm for St. Charles County," said resident Joe Faron, the former director of the national foundation who originally pitched the idea to the county. The facility is expected to host three or four big tournaments a year and potentially a national tournament.
Faron also heads the New Melle Horseshoe Club, which will oversee the new facility. He said the U-shaped building will feature 16 indoor horseshoe courts for tournaments as well as eight outdoor courts for the public. The connector between the two wings will serve as a museum and feature photos of past and present champions - such as 11-time World Champion Alan Francis of Defiance, Ohio.
Faron, 71, began pitching shoes with his friends as a kid to while away the hot summer hours in what was then a very rural Creve Coeur, Mo. He said the sport is as American as you can get and popular in Missouri, which has 32 different horseshoe clubs.
Despite the common backyard practice of tossing a horseshoe in one hand with a beer in the other, Faron said tournament horseshoes is competitive and grueling.
"It's definitely about endurance," he said. "The shoes weigh about 2 1/2 pounds each, and you're tossing each one 40 feet, 80 to 90 times a tournament. The competitors probably walk between 15 and 20 miles in the tournament by the time it's all done."
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(c) 2006, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
