LIGOWSKY AND KIMBLE CHANGE TRAPSHOOTING FOREVER.

 The year 1880 was the vintage year for trapshooting because during that year practically all elements of the sport were perfected. Starting things off was the appearance of the first clay balls in Cincinnati. Then a shooter named George Ligowsky (right), a Cincinnatian, came up with a clear and distinct idea, illustrating the genius so characteristic of the truly great invention. As good as clay balls were, they really didn't fly in any birdlike sense, and it is doubtful that even a good screwball pitcher could make one soar. Ligowsky came up with quite a different concept. The idea came to him, so the story goes, while watching a group of boys skipping flat stones across a lake near his home. The result: a flat clay bird that would scale through the air like a flat stone across water, spinning and rising and flying and drifting, in other words, behaving very much like a bird without having to look like one. That was it!

Ligowsky's first targets (left & right)), made of finely ground clay mixed with water and baked, were extremely hard, ringing almost like a bell when hit. They made their debut at the conclusion of the New York State Trap Shoot at Coney Island that year and made quite an impression on the shooters gathered there. To promote his targets, Ligowsky hired Captain Bogardus and W. F. Carver, a well-known trick-shot artist with the Buffalo Bill show, to tour the country and introduce the new "birds" to shooters. (see the final results of the tour, won by Carver. Look for a complete story on this historical match in the coming months.) The tour was a great success and soon the Peoria Blackbird, the American Target, the Keystone Target, the Bat, the Dickey Bird, and the Black Pigeon became common gun-club names for the type of target Ligowsky had conceived and which others were now producing.

The Peoria Blackbird, invented by Fred Kimble in 1884, in very closely related to our targets today. It is made with much the same ingredients found in our targets today. He never made much money off his invention because his targets (ingredients) were stolen by others, even though he had a patent on them. 

The rules for glass-ball shooting that Bogardus had formulated some years earlier were now in general use by clubs throughout the country. He recommended three traps set 10 yards apart in a straight line, with the shooter 18 yards behind the trap line and the trap puller 6 feet behind the shooter. The traps were numbered 1, 2, and 3 from left to right. The Number 1 trap was set to throw a left-angle target; Number 2 threw a straightaway, and Number 3 a right-angle bird. The order in which the traps were pulled was determined by the referee, who drew a numbered wad at random from his pocket and showed it to the puller.

Between them, Bogardus and Carver probably did more than any other shooters of their era to establish the sport as we know it today. The Bogardus rules laid out the modern trap field to all intents and purposes. Only one element was missing: the oscillating trap. But as the vintage year of 1880 ended, this, too, made its first rudimentary appearance in the form of the Davenport Standard Ball trap. This trap could throw both singles and doubles. Though it did not oscillate automatically it could be rotated in a variety of angles, introducing the element of surprise. And it was said to be capable of firing 40 balls a minute at a distance of 40 yards. Despite the fact that the Davenport trap threw glass balls and not clay targets, its development indicated that the evolution of today's oscillating clay-target trap was not too far off.

The Hall of Fame, soon to be in Sparta, IL has a world class collection of clay targets. I have studied them every chance I got when I visited the HOF. The display is really priceless. In my small collection of about a dozen or so are some really rare birds, including the very first White Flyer. I also have all 4 different kinds of the Ligowsky targets plus a bunch of other 1880-1890 targets. 

Richard Hamilton & Dick Baldwin