Rolling into Richmond

When you work with old newspapers, to say you stumble across a lot of bizarre stories is an understatement. Headlines like “Dog Shoots Man,” and “‘I Hate Money’ Cries Richest Girl” are just a few of the many eye-catching headlines I’ve read in the past few weeks. It’s difficult to pass over certain stories without a second glance, so when I saw the article, “Skater Rushes Through City On Jaunt To Skate Capital,” I had to read on. It seems that in the summer of 1950, eighteen-year-old high school student Arthur C. Lehman took an epic 369-mile journey on roller-skates from Huntington, West Virginia to Richmond, Virginia. From July 18 to August 4, Virginia newspapers followed the “Marathon Roller’s” punishing trail as he skated towards the Virginia state capital.

From the late 1930s to the late 1950s, roller skating was an enormously popular pastime in the US. People of all ages enjoyed skating as a form of recreation and exercise, and by the late 1940s there were an estimated 5,000 roller rinks across the US. Roller skating was so popular, that in 1941 there was even a Richmond newspaper totally devoted to it. Published by the Noble-Balcom Corporation, owner of Richmond’s Cavalier Arena and member of the Roller-Skating Rink Owners Association, the Cavalier Skating News (which will soon be available on Virginia Chronicle) covered all things related to the rink’s activities, from updates on live musical guests to features about the rink’s employees. With skating’s massive popularity at the time, it’s no wonder that when Arthur Lehman decided to skate across two states, Virginia newspapers were all over the story.

Using a combination of digital newspaper databases, including the Library of Virginia’s Virginia Chronicle, NewsBank’s America’s News: Historical and Current database and Newspapers.com (accessible on the Library’s Reading Room computers), I was able to reconstruct Lehman’s path and discover details of his roller-skating adventure through multiple newspaper reports.

A native of Dunbar, West Virginia, Lehman kicked off his trip in Huntington, fifty miles west of Dunbar, on July 17, 1950. Soon after, the Free Lance Star of Fredericksburg and the Northern Virginia Daily of Strasburg published AP articles detailing the first leg of his journey. Both papers reported that Lehman, during his first day of travel, made it 56 miles in five hours and stayed the night in Marmet, six miles east of Charleston. “Why is he doing it?” he was asked, “Because I love to skate,” he replied. The papers also noted that he predicted he could do the trip in 10 days and would go through 10 sets of wheels, though he did bring a pair of shoes just in case he needed them.

A week into Lehman’s trip, stories about him appeared in newspapers across the commonwealth. The July 25th Covington Virginian wrote that Lehman had made it to Sulphur Springs and “will probably reach Covington sometime today and hopes to pick up mail here.” It was later reported that there was no mail awaiting him when he arrived. That same day, stories from the Richmond News Leader, the Portsmouth Star and the Clifton Forge Daily Review all revealed that he had a blister on his left foot and was wearing through wheels faster than expected. The Richmond Times Dispatch carried the headline: “Skater, En Route to Richmond, Wonders If Idea Was Good” detailing that Lehman was “skating on a blister, has worn out several skate wheels, has sent home once for money, and was visibly disappointed to learn there are no concrete highways to look forward to in Virginia.”  When asked if he would go on to visit Williamsburg after his Richmond stop, Lehman asked, “What’s there?” The distance he had traveled varied according to reports, with one newspaper saying he had gone 150 miles and another claiming he had made it 170.

In the days following, newspapers continued to print accounts of Lehman’s progress. “The lanky, bedraggled skater has been on wheels for nine days. He left Huntington 6:30 a.m. July 17 and has been going strong since,” The Clifton Forge Daily Review  (pictured above) reported on July 26, “the 360 mile grind to Richmond is just a test run for Lehman. He plans to make a cross country trip next summer.” He also told the Daily Review that he was making the trip on roller skates because his friends had dared him to and because it had never been done. “People have taken similar trips on foot,” he explained, “but I’m the first one to make it on skates.” Various papers that day also informed readers that he had decided not to take route 60 to Richmond, as originally planned, but instead would travel by way of Lexington, Waynesboro and Charlottesville.

On July 27, the Ledger-Star posted a photo of young Lehman clad in white t-shirt and light-colored khakis with the caption, “Roller Skater Nurses a Bunion.” By the 28th, the condition of Lehman’s feet and wheels had deteriorated enough to temporarily halt the trip. On Saturday, July 29, the Ledger-Star reported that Lehman had been forced to hitch-hike back to Dunbar to “obtain new rollers for his skates” but said that he would soon return to Lexington to pick up where he left off. Fortunately, a kind motorist—identified as F.B. Thomason in the Ledger-Star but as F.B. Thompson in the Northern Virginia Daily—gave him a ride most of the way home. “He hopes to start rolling again Sunday morning,” his mother told reporters, “Richmond can expect Arthur about Wednesday [Aug. 2] if he’s lucky.”

By August 1, Lehman resumed his trip after hitchhiking back to Lexington from Dunbar. The Waynesboro News Virginian claimed that the skater was undeterred despite bad weather, Virginia’s rough asphalt roads and the continuing toll it was taking on his feet: “Eight Band-Aids grace the portion of his foot where a number of large blisters are.” Not only was the journey grueling, but it sounded extremely dangerous as well. “Usually cars respect his rights,” the News Virginian explained, “but yesterday, from Steele’s Tavern to Waynesboro at least five cars deliberately forced him from the road.” After the harrowing trip from Lexington to Waynesboro, Lehman stayed at the Southern Inn before heading on to Charlottesville. On August 2, an AP story said that Lehman had left Charlottesville for Richmond and that he expected to make it to the capital by August 3.

Lehman did finally make it to Richmond on the evening of August 3, but his arrival was met with little fanfare. No ticker tape parade or official welcoming party greeted him, though the Richmond City police did pick him up. “Arthur was met by a squad car when he reached the city limits,” the Richmond News Leader reported the morning after his arrival, “He says he was ready to accept anything—’even a cell’—to sleep in since his total assets amounted to only $1.15 at the time.” Fortunately, the kindly police officers did not arrest Lehman but instead pooled enough money for him to stay the night in an unnamed hotel. When asked if he would skate home, he said the condition of his feet made it necessary to hitch a ride back to Dunbar. The article, with accompanying photo of barefoot and bespeckled Lehman, conveyed that his two biggest complaints about the trip were the rough roads and the impatient drivers. “Arthur says he ‘doubts very seriously’ whether he will make a reported trip from coast to coast next summer,” the News Leader article concluded, “‘My feet were feeling better yesterday when I said I might try it.’”

And so, Lehman successfully skated across West Virginia and Virginia and then the adventure was done. Through heavy rains, over punishing roads, with blistered feet and very little money (a total of about $30, $11 or $12 of which was donations), Lehman had successfully skated his way from Huntington, West Virginia to Richmond, Virginia with what might be described as an anticlimactic conclusion.

Lehman’s story is both a testament to skating’s popularity at the time and to the newspaper’s continued love for quirky local stories, but it is also telling of how quickly newspapers moved on to the next thing. For two and half weeks, newspapers closely followed Lehman’s trail, but afterwards I could find nothing more about him. There were no reports on what Lehman did while in Richmond or about his safe return home, and there was no evidence I could find that he ever attempted the cross-country skate he contemplated doing the following year. Once the trip was over, it seems he immediately became yesterday’s news. I was also unable to recover anything about Lehman in the newspapers regarding his later life, like if the “bedraggled” teen eventually married or had a family, what career path he took, or if he ever did anything else as daring as his two-state tour on roller skates. If anyone knows anything about Arthur C. Lehman, the “city-bound skater,” we’d love to learn more about the young man who skated across the Virginias during the summer of 1950.