“Gaming” used to mean playing with marbles. Historians believe marbles started with cave people playing with natural balls of clay. The Golden Age of marbles spanned from the late 1920s to 1930s. This leather bag and marbles are displayed in the Botetourt History Museum along with the book “Fincastle Random Small Town Memories” by Robert Archer Preas Waid. Robert or “Bobby” Waid was an expert and taught children how to play marbles at the museum when it was behind the courthouse. In his book Bobby wrote about growing up in Fincastle and how marbles in those days was strictly a masculine sport. “They came from every background, in every color, to clean house or go home with an empty marble sack.” Marbles are still played and collected today.
~ Botetourt County Museum of History & Culture