Ed Shannon, Between the Corn Rows

One important lesson anyone living in the Albert Lea area, and especially folks here at the Tribune, learn is to get the last names right when it comes to the &8220;en&8221; and &8220;on&8221; endings.

According to local lore, a name like Olsen or Jensen denotes Danish ancestry. A name like Olson or Jenson is supposed to be of Norwegian origin.

I recently became involved in this name game when Linda Evenson, librarian at the Freeborn County Historical Museum gave me a copy of a Tribune news article. This article was based on a former resident who reportedly had invented the skateboard.

In this particular article published sometime in April 1965, the last name of Jenson was used three times and Jensen appeared just once. And right there was a cue that something was really questionable. Also, the mix-up between those last names created a problem with the research needed regarding this skateboard subject.

Now, let’s get right to the topic for this column.The man the Tribune said invented what we now call the skateboard was Alfred &8220;Alf&8221; A. Jensen. He was a former Albert Lea resident living in Redondo Beach, Calif., a part of the Los Angeles metro area, in 1965. The Tribune article said he put roller skate wheels on the bottom of a small surf board to create a toy-like device called the ski-skate. He had sold 200,000 of the novelty skates before a large firm took over the marketing of this fad item. Jensen, as a result, was getting a royalty on each of the ski-skates sold.

The creator of what the Tribune called a sidewalk toy had been a jockey, horse trainer, clothing and car salesman, miner, fireman, garage operator, motorcycle daredevil rider, writer and artist. His creation of the ski-skate had been featured in several newspapers and magazines, plus the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

However, there was a strong local angle in the Tribune article.

Alf’s older brother, Arthur &8220;Art&8221; R. Jensen, was the owner of Albert Lea’s Midway Motor Co. since 1922. Alf had sent a number of these skate devices to his brother. Art was pictured in the Tribune standing on two of the ski-skates and holding two more of these recreational devices. In fact, the ski-skate were being sold locally at Midway Motor, then located to the south of the Albert Lea Post Office.

With some assistance from Linda at the museum’s library, I can provide a little more information about the Jensen brothers. Art died on Jan. 24, 1967, and is buried in Graceland Cemetery. One of the inventors of the skateboard, Alf Jensen, died on Dec. 23, 1967, in California and that’s evidently where he’s buried.

To carry this topic one notch further along, I did some Internet research on the specific subject of skateboard history. I found two prime sites and neither one named any individual as the inventor of this device.

Skateboards evidently evolved in the 1950s with a group of California surfer dudes who wanted to ride the streets and sidewalks instead of the waves. The first ski-boards or skateboards were rather crude. It’s likely that Alf Jensen was able to help improve on the concept of skate wheels attached to small boards in the early 1960s.

However, the history of skateboarding has had several periods of popularity followed by real declines in activity during the last five-plus decades. One site says this is similar to what has happened to the hoola hoop and several other fad novelties.

One of the Internet sources had this interesting comment regarding the origin of skateboards in the early 1950s.

&8220;The first skateboards were actually like scooters, with the undercarriage consisting of roller-skate wheels attached to a two by four. Once the push bar of the scooter-like contraption was broken off, skateboarding was born.&8221;

Again, let’s emphasize the point made at the first of this column. When it comes to the spelling of some area last names, make sure if its Olsen or Olson, or as I discovered it was really Jensen and not Jenson.

(Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.)