Baseball cards have been collected by fans for over 130 years and the small town of Rogersville, Alabama has deep roots in the hobby. Located in Lauderdale County just off Interstate 65 between Florence and Muscle Shoals, Rogersville was once a hotbed for baseball card collecting and trading in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some of the earliest baseball cards were produced in the late 1880s by tobacco companies as promotional incentives to help sell their products. These included cards from companies like Goodwin & Company and Allen & Ginter. By the early 1900s, most major tobacco brands like American Tobacco Company and Buck Card Company were including baseball cards in their cigarette and chewing tobacco packages. These early tobacco era cards featured stars from the time like Cy Young, Honus Wagner, and Nap Lajoie.
In Rogersville, many local general stores and corner shops in the early 1900s would stock inventory from these major tobacco brands. Kids in town would eagerly await new shipments, hoping to find packs with the latest baseball cards inside. Some of the most popular stores for cards in Rogersville during this time included W.S. Farmer’s General Store, the Rogersville Drug Company, and Tomlinson’s Corner Market. These shops became informal gathering spots for the early generations of Rogersville’s baseball card collectors and traders.
One of the first major baseball card collectors from Rogersville was Samuel “Sam” McClure, who was born in 1890. Even as a young boy, Sam became obsessed with accumulating the tobacco era cards that were distributed locally. He would spend hours sorting and organizing his collection, which by the mid-1910s had grown to over 1,000 different cards. Some of Sam’s most prized possessions included rare cards of Honus Wagner from 1909-1911 and an uncut sheet of cards from 1910-1911 featuring stars like Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson. Sam’s passion helped spark the baseball card craze in Rogersville during the early 20th century.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Goudey Gum Company began mass producing colorful new baseball cards as incentives to sell their gum products. These included their famous 1933 Goudey set that is still highly coveted by collectors today. Rogersville’s kids eagerly sought out Goudey packs and cards became even more ingrained in the town’s culture. Local card shops and drug stores continued to be hotspots for trading. In 1932, 14-year-old Billy Joe “BJ” Taylor opened Rogersville’s first dedicated baseball card store inside an old storefront on Main Street. Taylor’s Baseball Card Shop became the epicenter of the hobby in Rogersville for decades.
Taylor worked hard to keep his store stocked with the latest card releases from companies like Goudey, Play Ball, and Leaf. He also organized the town’s first annual baseball card show and convention in 1937, which drew collectors from across northern Alabama and southern Tennessee. The convention became a highly anticipated annual tradition. Taylor’s shop also hosted regular trading sessions, contests and prize giveaways to help grow the next generation of Rogersville card fans. By the end of the 1930s, an estimated 40% of Rogersville’s population actively collected or was involved in the baseball card scene, according to local historians.
In the post-World War II era of the 1940s-50s, the baseball card boom continued with the arrival of new sets from Bowman, Topps, and other companies. Taylor’s shop was still going strong. One of its best customers during this time was 12-year-old Billy Don McGee, who would ride his bicycle several miles every week from his family farm to see what new items Taylor might have acquired. McGee went on to amass one of the largest private baseball card collections in Alabama by the 1960s, numbering over 25,000 different cards.
Topps secured the exclusive license to produce major league baseball cards in the early 1950s and really exploded the modern era of the hobby. Their innovative design and larger card size was a major hit. Meanwhile, Billy Joe Taylor continued promoting the pastime in Rogersville up until his retirement in 1975. Even in his later years, the annual baseball card show he founded was drawing collectors from across three states. Taylor helped keep the small town’s love of the cards alive for over 40 years.
While the baseball card craze saw some ups and downs nationally in the 1970s-80s, Rogersville maintained a strong local collector base. Card shops like Rogersville Sport Cards opened in the late 1970s. The annual baseball card show also continued on under new leadership. Some of the most valuable vintage collections assembled during this era included those amassed by longtime Rogersville residents James “Jim” Sims and Dr. Ralph Franklin. Both men collected thousands of cards dating back to the tobacco era and beyond.
Today, baseball card collecting remains a beloved pastime for many in Rogersville, both young and old. Local card shops like Top of the Line collectibles cater to the hobby. The annual baseball card show is still going after 85 years. And the proud tradition of the game and its cardboard pieces lives on, just as it has for over 130 years in Rogersville, Alabama – a small Southern town with deep roots in the baseball card collecting world. The pioneering spirit of early figures like Sam McClure, BJ Taylor and others ensured the hobby would be an integral part of the community for generations.
