Since Dave started this, here goes:
William Harnden Foster and brothers H.W. and C.D. Davies set up a course in the “chicken yard” on the grounds of the Glen Rock Kennels as practice for grouse hunting. One trap was secured to a crotched elm post and raised about four feet off the ground. It was placed at 12:00, throwing targets toward 6:00, with the shooters standing at 12 stations around a full circle with a 25-yard radius.
Courtesy of Dean
About 1923, Foster conceived "Shooting Around The Clock," and used his position as editor and chief illustrator of both
National Sportsman and
Hunting and Fishing magazines to promote the new shooting game. Two traps (one elevated at ten feet) were positioned at 12:00 and 6:00. The shooters walked around a semi-circle with a 20 yard radius and shot from eight stations, the last position being in the center of the 'clock.' In 1936, the National Skeet Shooters Association (NSSA) altered the layout to throw targets at a 15- degree angle to allow multiple fields to be positioned in a straight line.
A two-page spread appeared in the February 1926 issues of
National Sportsman and
Hunting and Fishing, announcing “A New Sport for Shotgun Shooters” and a $100 prize for the best name for the new shooting game. The May 1926 issue announced the winner, Mrs. Gertrude Hurbutt of Dayton, Montana, and the new name, "Skeet," from an old Scandinavian word for shoot.
Early scores averaged 15 broken targets out of 25, but by July the first 25x25 was recorded by H.M. Jackson of North Carolina.
Remarkably, the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926
National Sportsman, only two months after the game was named! Was the Ithaca Gun Co. tipped off in advance of the announcement in order to accelerate production of a designated skeet gun?
The cover of the August 1926
National Sportsman by Foster was “the first painting ever published of a scene in the new sport of Skeet” and possibly depicted his son using Foster Sr.’s 20 gauge Parker DHE with 27-inch barrels
Foster also designed a logo featuring a flying quail with superimposed clay target and shot pattern
The NSSA was formed March 20, 1928 and announced in the May issues of
National Sportsman and
Hunting and Fishing magazines. William Harnden Foster was selected as the first president, and the name of the association and presumably the logo were proprietary to National Sportsman, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts.
Anyone have one of the Trojan Skeet guns?
