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HISTORY GAMES Popular legend has it that New York was the birthplace of American polo – but, asks Herbert Spencer, were the US origins of the sport some 1,500 miles to the west?
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hard-riding westerners 1,550 miles west in the Lone Star state of Texas? Did stick first strike ball in Manhattan or in the small, north Texas town of Denison? Herein lies a mystery yet to be solved, even by eminent polo historian Horace Laffaye, whose latest book, A History: Polo in the United States, is the definitive work on American polo. Denison was founded in 1872 as an important railway hub, 73 miles north of Dallas near the frontier with Indian Territory (later to become the state of Oklahoma). Until now, Denison’s main claim to fame is as the birthplace of Dwight D Eisenhower, World War II Allied Commander in Europe, who became the 34th President of the United States. The
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Sorting historical fact from romantic legend in researching the early days of polo anywhere in the world is never easy. So it is with the beginnings of the sport in the United States in the 19th century. Historians have always assumed that polo was introduced to the US by American newspaper publisher and sportsman James Gordon Bennett Jr and his New York friends in the winter of 1875/76. They started with practice games indoors at Dickel’s Academy in Manhattan before they first played outdoors on traditional grass grounds in the spring or early summer of 1876. But was the sport really first played by patrician equestrians in New York – or by
town’s place in the history of American polo has never been fully explored. Donna Hunt, former editor of The Denison Herald and now a columnist, discovered a 1927 newspaper article that appears to put Denison in the running for honours as the first venue for polo in the US. The article offers no ‘documentary’ proof of early polo in Denison. It was however written during the lifetime of Denison citizens who were alive in the 1870s, so could have been based on oral accounts, an accepted tool of historians. The 1927 writer is specific about there being a ‘polo team’ in Denison 53 years earlier, ie in 1874. The article even refers to the exact site of the 1870s polo ground in the town, with its ‘east goal’ on what became West Chestnut Street. If true, then polo in Denison predates polo in Manhattan by some three years. But how did Texans even know about polo, much less how to play the game, as early as 1874? The sport had only reached Europe from India five years earlier and, as an esoteric and elitist ‘new’ game, attracted little attention outside a small fraternity of aristocrats and the military. One can speculate that expat Englishmen familiar with polo back home were part of cattle drives into Denison in the 1870s – but that would be more legend than fact. Even if Denison’s introduction to polo came after Gordon Bennett’s first practice games indoors in New York, the Texas town might well lay claim to holding the first outdoor games on traditional grass grounds. In New York, the Westchester Polo Club was founded in March 1876 and a match was played in May of that year. In Texas, contemporary newspaper accounts refer to the ‘Denison Polo Club’ playing in the same month. Which came first? ‘Clearly the issue is between Texas and New York,’ says the historian Laffaye. ‘But, lacking contemporary documentation, I am reluctant to place one before the other. It is ultimately impossible to ascertain which state was the pioneer. ‘Perhaps soon some newspaper account or a private letter will appear and the mystery will be solved.’
