The 1923 Akron Press Marble Tournament

Articles and images appear courtesy of the E.W. Scripps Company and the Akron / Summit County Public Library.

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These articles announce to the young Mibsters of Akron that The Press was sponsoring a big marble tournament and the winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to Atlantic City to compete in the national marble shooting championship. The official game chosen for the tournament was RINGER. The elimination matches were to be held at local schools and the details of how all this would happen were still not all worked out.

These articles contain information on how the local elimination tournaments would be carried out by the schools and generally promoted the idea to build enthusiasm among the children of Akron. They still didn’t have all the details worked out, the sponsors were kicking around the idea of holding a State-qualifying tournament, and the winner would represent their state in the national finals. They soon realized that schedule would not allow all the participating newspapers to take full advantage of the events planned for Atlantic City.

Local elimination tournaments begin. As each school held a tournament and a school champ was picked the Marble Editor covered these events; The Press published a detailed description of the tournament, a short bio of each school champion and put the champs picture in the newspaper. There were 40 school champs this year.

The last of the school champs are picked and district elimination tournaments cut the 40 champs down to 9 who will complete in the Summit County marble tournament. The winner will represent the county and The Press in Atlantic City at the national finals. The 40 champs are given a special day at the visiting circus.

The local champ is picked and he will compete against other local champs from 40 cities, coming from all over the United States. The champs travel to Washington D.C. by train where they meet up for a day of sight-seeing before traveling to Atlantic City to play in the nationals. Waiting for them in Atlantic City is Akron’s own, Samuel C. Dyke, ‘father of the modern American toy industry,’ first to mass-produce a toy – a clay marble – a most honored guest of the tournament. The “champeen” of U.S. marbles, the “marble king,” and the first winner of the National Marble Tournament is chosen.