Read an entire article from the LA Times here.
In the 1960s, Larry Stevenson’s Makaha skateboards helped merge surfing and skateboard cultures. He also publicized the activity as publisher of Surf Guide magazine.
Excerpts from the Times article say:
“Larry Stevenson, a Venice Beach lifeguard who helped popularize skateboarding in the early 1960s by marketing his Makaha boards to riders eager to essentially surf on land, has died. He was 81.
Stevenson, who hadParkinson’s disease, died Sunday at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said his son, Curt.
“He was the guy who said, ‘I can merge surfing with the skateboard culture,’” said Michael Brooke, author of the 1999 skateboarding history “The Concrete Wave.” “At one point in time, there was nobody bigger making skateboards.”
From his lifeguard tower, Stevenson noticed kids riding rickety, often homemade, skateboards, and he had an epiphany, he later recalled. He knew he could engineer a better skateboard and, as publisher of Surf Guide, used the magazine to link the wheeled pastime to the exploding surf scene.”
In 1965, theAmerican Medical Assn.labeled skateboards “a new medical menace.” A variety of skateboards had flooded the market and riders were increasingly injured. Safety experts urged stores not to sell skateboards and advised parents not to buy them.
The fad died as quickly as it began, as did sales for Makaha.
“One week I was getting so many orders, people were leaving them on my doorstep. … The next, I was getting 75,000 cancellations in a single day!” Stevenson recalled in “The Skateboarder’s Bible” (1976).
He shut down the factory in 1966 and returned to his lifeguard chair, but he continued to ponder building a better skateboard.”
A service is planned at Venice Beach. Details will be posted at Stevenson’s Facebook page,http://www.facebook.com/RichardLStevenson.
The facebook page also has many amazing photographs!
My husband has one of his boards mounted on the wall. When our home was robbed, he ran into the office to see if it was still there. Despite the burglars cleaning us out… when he realized that stupid skateboard was still on the wall… he was fine. For better or worse as they say….