History

It could be said that there are five halls of fame housed in the International Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum in Arlington, Texas: Those of the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America (BPAA), the United States Bowling Congress (USBC), the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA), the Professional Women's Bowlers Association (PWBA), and the World Bowling Writers (WBW).

It could also be said that there are seven halls of fame involved, since the USBC includes those originally established by the American Bowling Congress (ABC) and the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC). In effect, those halls of fame are kept intact, while the newer USBC Hall of Fame includes members who might otherwise been selected by the ABC or WIBC.

Opened as the National Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Louis on June 2, 1984, the hall had its roots in a display of historical material gathered by the ABC to be exhibited at its annual tournament in 1939.

In 1972, the display was moved into a temporary home at Bowling Headquarters, the joint ABC/WIBC operation in Greendale, WI. The two groups in 1977 got together with two major equipment manufacturers, AMF Incorporated and the Brunswick Corporation, and with the Bowling Proprietors Association of America to found the National Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum as a non-profit corporation.

St. Louis was chosen from 35 cities that applied to become the site for the hall, which was built at a cost of about $7 million.

That facility was shut down in November of 2008. It reopened on January 26, 2010, at the new International Bowling Campus. The 100,000-square foot facility includes the headquarters of the BPAA, the USBC, Strike Ten Entertainment, the Bowling Foundation, the International Bowling Pro Shop and Instructors Association, the Bowling and Billiards Association, the Bowling Writers Association of America and the Bowling News Network.

The museum portion of the facility contains five major areas: The Inventors, the Advocates, the Champions, the Innovations, and the Future.

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