History
1930: Bored Clevelanders Set World Records
They chased endurance records on bikes, in boats and in trees.
by Sheehan Hannan | Jul. 25, 2019 | 12:00 PM
In July 1930, Cleveland was gripped by a summertime mania. Kids sat for days in trees. Boys raced bikes up and down their streets for hundreds of hours. And two men drove their outboard motorboat back and forth endlessly in the Lake Erie bay at Edgewater Park.
No official adjudicators from Guinness World Records were around, but that didn’t stop these kooky Clevelanders from trying to set so-called endurance records.
Do almost anything for long enough, it seemed, and you could claim a record. Of the record-breakers, the outboard motor crew, J.W. Griffin and George Mishey, got the most press.
They required constant refills of fuel and food. Their manager, Roger Eyring, hung from a pier and handed it down to the boat.
On one pass, he dangled a can of oil and gas. On another, he dropped a meal from a restaurant called Chapin’s Lunch. “Mishey and Griffin say they will stay out until the motor gives out,” The Plain Dealer said.
They stayed on the water for just over 168 hours, beating the old supposed record by 30 hours. Two days later, three local teenagers attempted to break the record for length of time sitting in a tree.
“Elyria’s three aspirants for tree-sitting honors are making something of a party of their contest, being perched in two trees about twenty feet apart,” The Plain Dealer reported, “and carrying on continuous conversation to relieve the monotony of just sitting.”
No official adjudicators from Guinness World Records were around, but that didn’t stop these kooky Clevelanders from trying to set so-called endurance records.
Do almost anything for long enough, it seemed, and you could claim a record. Of the record-breakers, the outboard motor crew, J.W. Griffin and George Mishey, got the most press.
They required constant refills of fuel and food. Their manager, Roger Eyring, hung from a pier and handed it down to the boat.
On one pass, he dangled a can of oil and gas. On another, he dropped a meal from a restaurant called Chapin’s Lunch. “Mishey and Griffin say they will stay out until the motor gives out,” The Plain Dealer said.
They stayed on the water for just over 168 hours, beating the old supposed record by 30 hours. Two days later, three local teenagers attempted to break the record for length of time sitting in a tree.
“Elyria’s three aspirants for tree-sitting honors are making something of a party of their contest, being perched in two trees about twenty feet apart,” The Plain Dealer reported, “and carrying on continuous conversation to relieve the monotony of just sitting.”
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