Inline Skates - History

History

John Joseph Merlin experimented with single- to many-rowed devices worn on feet in 1780. Inline skates, skates designed to work like ice skates during periods of warm weather, were invented by Louis Legrange of France in 1849. Legrange designed the skates for an opera where a character was to appear to be skating on ice. The skates were problematic and unsuccessful as the wearer could not turn nor could they stop. The first U.S. patent for modern in-line skates, designed to behave like ice runners with individually sprung and cushioned wheels, was granted under patent number US 2644692 in July, 1953 to Ernest Kahlert of Santa Ana, CA. They were briefly described in the April 1950 issue of "Popular Mechanics" and again in the April 1954 issue of "Popular Science" in the section called "New Ideas from the Inventors." In Canada in 1972, Mountain Dew attempted to sell Mettoy's product the "Skeeler", an inline skate that was developed for Russian hockey players and speed skaters. The first commercially available inline skate for this form of Rollerskating is in 1987 by Rollerblade. In 2012, Kacie Fischer became the first woman, and the fastest person, to inline skate across the United States; she skated from California to Florida in 47 days.