Letterboxing USA - Yahoo Groups Archive

LbNA

4 messages in this thread | Started on 2015-08-30

LbNA

From: J. BRIDGMAN (jmbridgman@snet.net) | Date: 2015-08-30 11:57:36 UTC
Hi Jay,

You made this statement in your recap of letterboxing:  "LbNA was created in 1998 soon after the Smithsonian Magazine article by Chris Granstrom introduced boxing to America."  Is that date true?  I began letterboxing in 1983 and was getting cllues from letterboxing.org.  So it was not LbNA then?
Anyway, it has been a wonderful hobby.


Re: [LbNA] LbNA

From: Tom Cooch (thomascooch@gmail.com) | Date: 2015-08-30 08:09:25 UTC-04:00
Jay’s statement was accurate. Letterboxing.org did not exist prior to the summer of 1998.


Tom Cooch
Braintree, VT

The Orient Express

"The game is afoot!"


On Aug 30, 2015, at 7:57 AM, 'J. BRIDGMAN' jmbridgman@snet.net [letterbox-usa] <letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


Hi Jay,

You made this statement in your recap of letterboxing:  "LbNA was created in 1998 soon after the Smithsonian Magazine article by Chris Granstrom introduced boxing to America."  Is that date true?  I began letterboxing in 1983 and was getting cllues from letterboxing.org.  So it was not LbNA then?
Anyway, it has been a wonderful hobby.






Re: [LbNA] LbNA

From: (drewclan@aol.com) | Date: 2015-08-30 06:32:49 UTC-07:00

I'm famous for getting dates wrong, sometimes accidentally on purpose, but I'm pretty sure LbNA was founded in '98. There were other boxes in the US before then, though. I mentioned the Valley Quest series, but if I recall correctly there were others too. Does anyone have a better memory of pre-LbNA letterboxing in the US than I?

I base the 1998 date on the Smithsonian article "They Live and Breathe Letterboxing," which can still be read on letterboxing.org. This yahoogroup was founded on October 11, 1998. Actually, back then it was an "eGroup"  before yahoo bought that out in 2000. More history...

Mark & Sue Pepe's website has some cool interviews with the early folks if you haven't seen that yet (note on our own interview there: the mystery clue embedded in the interview is confirmed missing):

Pinecone Boxing

 




You can also go to the letterbox-usa message #1 and read about how letterbox.org came about from the first hand point of view:

Letterboxing North America - USA

 



Jay in CT

Re: [LbNA] LbNA

From: (drewclan@aol.com) | Date: 2015-08-30 06:45:45 UTC-07:00

Ahhhh, taking my own advice I started re-reading the early posts here on letterbox-usa and note that I was mistaken about the website being first hosted on AOL. It was on pclink, and the good old Wayback Machine isn't doing a good job pulling those ancient pages up for me. I'd love to see them.

It's pretty cool to step in to that conversation from 17 years ago that shows the thinking behind the earliest clue sharing venues.

Jay