This is a partial listing as there were “platforms too many to mention in the suburban area of New York City,” and there were also courts in Los Angeles and Nova Scotia.
Source:”Growth of the Game,” Report to members of the American Paddle Tennis Association”, as cited in Paddle Tennis, Blanchard 1944
Through the 1930s and 1940s, Fox Meadow players dominated the new sport, and their styles and strategies became the standards for championship play. The Club’s pre-eminence was partly attributable to members’ wholehearted adoption of the game and partly to the fact that Fox Meadow had far more courts than any other club, with the exception of Manursing Island Club in Rye, NY.
Jimmy Cogswell (1893-1959) was a founder of the game of platform tennis along with Fess Blanchard.
Cogswell grew up in Portsmouth, ME and Blanchard in Boston, MA and both had different educational backgrounds and interests, but through an extraordinary lucky set of events they ended up as neighbors in Scarsdale, worked in the same business area, and had similar interests in finding something to do in the winter months.
The first court was built on the Cogswell property on Old Army Road and became a gathering point for a bunch of friends that called themselves the Old Army Athletes.
The story of how the game grew from this court, rescued FMTC from bankruptcy and now is played by over 40,000 enthusiasts throughout the county is rich with the seminal contributions of many FMTC members over many decades.
Fox Meadow Teams again dominated the tournaments and were winners and finalists in the three events.
Couch and Kilmarx repeated their 1935 win by defeating Hyson and O’Hearn who had won the previous two years and Madge Beck and Marie Walker successfully defended their 1938 title and were on their way to five straight wins until the war years when the event was discontinued from 1943-1948.
Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944
In October, 1939, five years after the organization of the APTA, President Harold D. Holmes reported a membership of 15 clubs, all of them still only in the New York suburbs.
“As paddle tennis veterans may remember, our form of the game began in Scarsdale in November, 1928. For several years its growth was slow. In the last few years the game has gone rapidly ahead with Scarsdale still leading in the number of courts (now twenty-eight), Greenwich, CT, second, and Englewood, NJ, which has come forward rapidly, third. It is impossible now for the Association to keep an account of all of the courts that go up during each year. Some of the more recent ones include platforms for Saint Mary’s School of Peekskill, the Round Hill Club of Greenwich, the Bedford Golf and Tennis Club, the Knollwood Club of White Plains, the Saddle and Cycle Club of Chicago, the Woodway Country Club of Stamford, CT., the Knickerbocker Country Club of Tenafly, NJ, the Indian Harbor Yacht Club of Greenwich, the Stamford Yacht Club, the Devon Yacht Club of East Hampton, Long Island, the Orange Lawn Tennis Club and many others. Dr. George Gallup is expected shortly to take a poll of the growth of paddle tennis sentiment, for he has recently built a platform. Arthur Murray is probably complaining about the sanding of his paddle tennis court, which ruins it for dancing purposes. Thomas W. Lamont and John M. Hancock are among other well known men who have erected courts.
Besides platforms too many to mention in the suburban area of New York City, the game has spread to such widely scattered places as Atlantic City; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Danville, Virginia; Ottawa, Illinois; Danboro, Pa; Paoli, Pa; Narragansett, Rhode Island; Martha’s Vineyard, Mass; Bennington, Vermont; South Portland, Maine; Perrysburg, Ohio; Los Angeles, Cal.; and so on. England is reported to have one or two platforms at least. Plans have even been sent to Natal, South Africa, in response to an inquiry to the Association.”
Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
Blanchard gave Ward much credit for his enthusiasm and organizing ability as chairman of the Publicity Committee that he had run prior to taking over as President. He threw the same energy into the new position and the Association continued to flourish, By November 1941, the APTA had 21 member clubs. Blanchard considered him one of the best presidents the APTA had during the first two decades.
Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
© 2026 Platform Tennis Museum and Hall of Fame Foundation, All Rights Reserved.