Croquet’s Popularity Rose And Fell In Cincinnati But Its Dangers Lurked Ominously

Throughout our city’s long history, interest in croquet has ebbed and surged, sometimes in cycles briefer than a decade. One year, the Enquirer [19 September 1895] dismissed croquet as horridly passé:“Only a bold man would dare to be known nowadays as the croquet champion. Proficiency in that sport has come to be rated by the vulgar in the same class of accomplishments as superior skill in tatting.”And yet, less than two years later, the Enquirer [18 July 1897] carried this pronouncement:“The famous old-time game of croquet has again achieved prominence, and this year the indications are that it will forge to the front as a society amusement, and leave tennis and golf in the background.”It is true that subsequent revivals failed to achieve the passionate interest croquet enjoyed in the 1860s and 1870s when, for example, the croquet junkies of Oxford, Ohio, attempted to convince the town council to install a croquet pitch on the town square, the younger doctors at Cincinnati’s hospital…