The History of the Fly Swatter, an American Story

Favorite Son

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THE FLY SWATTER. Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine of the Kansas State Board of Health was watching a baseball game in Topeka in 1905. It was teh bottom of the eighth inning , the score was tied, and Topeka had a man on third. Fans were screaming "Sacrifice fly! Sacrifice fly!" to the batter, or "Swat the ball!" Crumbine, who'd spent much of the game mulling over how to reduce the spread of typhoid fever by flies during hot Kansas summers, suddenly got his inspiration: "Swat the fly!" Crumbine didn't actually invent the fly swatter; he just popularized the idea in a front-page article titled "Swat the Fly", in the next of Fly Bulletin. A schoolteacher named Frank Rose read the article and made the first fly swatter out of a yardstick and some wire screen.


As Published in Quilted Northern "100 Anniversary Bathroom Book"
Happy Holidays - Joe-