Longboarding, which is also known as sidewalk surfing, is a combination of surfing and skateboarding that originated in Hawaii around 1959 when early commercial skateboards appeared. Skate boards were sold in big department stores such as Sears and in some neighborhood stores, but skateboards were often viewed as kids' toys.
Skateboarding
As in Southern California, skateboarding caught on in Hawaii among surfers on days when the surf was low or it was too rough to go into the water. As in California, skateboarding became popular in the islands because it was sunny all day. Skateboarding eventually led to the creation of the longboard.
Early Longboards
Early longboards were often homemade contraptions created by taking the wheels from old-fashioned roller skates and attaching them to a plank or board. Generally they were made in the backyard by teenagers. Teenaged boys often made long boards because commercial skateboards were too short for them to use.
Urethane
Modern skateboarding and longboarding really took off in the 1970s when urethane wheels appeared. These wheels were stronger and made for faster speeds and more versatile boards. Popular variations of the sport also included pool surfing in which surfers skateboarded in empty pools. These pools were the forerunners of skate parks. The boarder culture appeared as did the first skate parks. The sport largely vanished in the early 1980s because of the high insurance costs and lawsuits that drove many of the parks out of business.
Resurgence
The big resurgence in longboarding started in the early 1990s when Tony Hawk and other celebrity boarders started popularizing skateboarding again. At that time large numbers of young men who had been boarding for years kept boarding as they got older. The huge popularity of snowboarding in the 1990s also helped popularize longboarding as many snowboarders turned to the longboard in the spring and summer. The 1990s saw an explosion of boarder culture and interest in all sorts of boarding. Unlike the 1970s this was no fad and boarding became a serious sport.
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