Who Invented Skateboards?

Rows of used skateboards leaning against a wall
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Question: Who Invented Skateboards?

Here's a very common question - who invented skateboards?

Answer: The answer? No one knows!! It's true! Many people have claimed that they made the first skateboard, but the truth is that we will probably never know who really made the first skateboard.

Sometime in the 1950s, all over California, surfers got the idea to try surfing on pavement. It seems that several people got the idea at the same time. Skateboarding was just sort of spontaneously created, without guidance or planning.

These first skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels slapped on the bottom. It was a crazy time, more about having fun than forming skateboarding into something that would rock the planet for the next 70+ years.

Slowly, the wooden boxes with wheels turned into planks, and eventually companies were producing decks of pressed layers of wood -- similar to the skateboard decks of today.

To find out more about the history of skateboards, read "Skateboarding: A Brief History."