Milwaukee loses a piece of its bowling heritage

Despite efforts to keep the U.S. Bowling Congress in town, it's moving to Texas.

By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 11, 2008

MILWAUKEE -- The brick factories sit silent and empty. The beer barons died long ago. Even Laverne and Shirley are a distant memory.

People here have learned to live with loss. But when city elders heard that the United States Bowling Congress was planning to move to Texas, they weren't going to just sit by and watch it leave.

Milwaukee bowlers proudly call their home America's Tenpin Capital. To them, it's a place where people are as passionate about beer as they are about bowling. It's as ingrained in the town's fabric as golf is in Augusta, Ga., and NASCAR in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Since the 1800s, when German and Polish immigrants seeking factory jobs brought the game to this southeastern Wisconsin city, blue-collar men and women have flocked to wooden lanes after the end-of-shift whistles. Kids here still celebrate their birthdays with a few frames, and professional bowlers drop by their old haunts to show off trick shots -- like throwing strikes at will with a towel -- to wide-eyed onlookers.

"It seemed like a bad joke," said Jim Paetsch, director of corporate expansion and relocation for the Milwaukee 7, the region's largest economic redevelopment organization.

Paetsch's group and a team of civic leaders mapped out financial incentives, enough to transform an empty field -- or possibly a defunct ice-rink project -- into expansive new offices. There would be a bowling-themed hotel; a museum filled with leather shoes, wooden pins and tavern songs; and a high-tech testing and training laboratory, where virtual reality programs would chart the trajectory of a bowler's delivery and gauge the perfect rotation of a ball's spin. More here.