Inventors
Pogo Stick - Pogostick
By
Mary
Bellis
There is a legend that, "either George Hansburg
or a anonymous German was traveling through Burma when he meet a poor
farmer with a daughter named Pogo. Pogo wanted to go to temple every day to
pray, but couldn't because she had no shoes to wear for the long walk through
the mud and rocks. So the poor farmer built a jumping stick for her, and when
George Hansburg or the anonymous German returned home, he made and sold a similar jumping stick of his
own."
Yes, the above story is just a legend and not
true, however, George Hansburg did patent the first pogo stick in 1919.
A boatload of wooden pogo sticks were exported
from Germany to the US based Gimble Brothers Department Store in 1919. However, the wooden sticks somehow rotted
and warped during the journey. That same year, Gimble asked George
Hansburg, an Illinois baby furniture and
toy designer, to improve the design of the wooden pogo sticks. Hansburg created
a painted all metal, enclosed-spring pogo stick, and manufactured them in an
Elmhurst, N.Y. factory.
In an effort to promote pogo sticks, George
Hansburg taught the Ziegfeld Follies girls how to pogo. In 1920, Ziegfeld
featured a marriage performed on pogo sticks. The roaring twenties proved to be
the height of popularity for pogo sticks and all kinds of pogo stick stunts and
publicity tricks occurred.
In 1947, George Hansburg invented the Master
Pogo, an improved steel pogo stick with a longer-lasting spring.
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