08/16/2026
🎳 CANDLEPIN BOWLING IN ALABAMA?
An old publication from the 1890s gives an unexpected glimpse of candlepin bowling in Alabama City, Alabama — placing candlepin bowling well beyond its New England roots more than 130 years ago.
📖 "Alabama City, Its Location and the Advantages It Offers the Workingman" was a 64-page publication created to promote Alabama City and highlight the community being developed there by the Dwight Manufacturing Company.
Among the facilities and amenities described were the Dwight Bowling Alleys — well-kept, electric-lighted alleys with regular pin-boys in attendance and “the best equipment of ten-pins and candle-pins.”
The publication notes that the alleys had balls in different sizes and weights, were kept in “splendid condition,” and had already produced some “large scores.” A large room in the same building was also available for residents to enjoy indoor games free of charge.
So… how did candlepin bowling make its way to Alabama?
The Dwight Manufacturing Company, a major textile company based in Chicopee, Massachusetts, established a large mill operation in Alabama City in the 1890s. Alongside the mill, the company developed an approximately 240-acre mill village designed to provide workers and their families with housing and community amenities. Plans called for 160 New England-style cottages, as well as a school, library, recreation facilities, bathhouses, lakes, medical facilities — and a bowling alley. 🎳
And tucked inside this promotional publication about a new Alabama community is this remarkable little piece of candlepin history.
