Mt. Sterling, located in Montgomery County, Kentucky, has a rich history spanning over 200 years. While the town is now home to just under 7,000 residents, it played an important role in Kentucky’s cultural heritage and sports culture. In particular, Mt. Sterling was once a hub for the thriving baseball card collecting scene in the Bluegrass State during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Baseball card collecting first emerged in the late 1800s as cigarette companies like American Tobacco began including illustrated cards with baseball players’ images in their products. Allen & Ginter was one of the first companies to mass produce sports cards for the tobacco market in 1886. Their cards helped popularize the relatively new professional baseball leagues that were forming at the time. By the 1890s, nearly every tobacco brand offered baseball cards as incentives to boost sales.
As baseball grew in popularity across America, the sport also took root in Kentucky. Mt. Sterling established an amateur baseball team in the 1870s that competed against other clubs from nearby towns. With baseball now consuming local leisure activities, especially among young men, the emerging baseball card trend also caught on. Some of the first baseball cards produced by Allen & Ginter and other tobacco manufacturers made their way to Mt. Sterling.
Collecting baseball cards became a beloved hobby for many in Mt. Sterling in those early decades. Young boys would eagerly await new card releases to add to their collections. They would also trade duplicate cards with friends to continue growing their albums. For older teens and adults, keeping up with their card collections was a leisure activity and gave them a connection to professional players they followed in newspapers. It fostered a growing enthusiasm for America’s pastime in the community.
By the 1890s, several general stores in downtown Mt. Sterling had designated sections specifically for the buying and selling of baseball cards. Popular shops like Gootee’s Sundries and Spencer’s Emporium kept stock of the latest card series and singles to meet demand. They often displayed promotional posters and ads for new cigarette brands featuring cards. This helped centralize Mt. Sterling as a regional hub where collectors from surrounding counties could trade, sell and discuss the latest developments in their hobby.
Local baseball cards were also frequently found in non-sports contexts in Mt. Sterling. Tobacco farms would include bonus packs of cards with crop shipments. Cards sometimes appeared tucked inside candy boxes at the pharmacy. Even the town barber kept a scrapbook of doubles and extras that customers could flip through while waiting. Through these varied means, the simple pastime of collecting cards further bonded the close-knit Mt. Sterling community and highlighted their shared interest in America’s national pastime.
When the players featured on the earliest tobacco cards started aging out of the professional leagues by the 1900s, a new generation of sports stars emerged to capture local imaginations. ” Nap” Lajoie, Joe Tinker and Honus Wagner became especially beloved figures whose cards from the T206 and E95 sets were highly coveted. Local collectors would swap stories about sightings of rare Wagner cards that only added to the mythos around one of baseball’s first true superstars. Such discussions fueled further collecting and appreciation of the players on cardboard.
By the early 1910s, the Golden Age of baseball cards was beginning to hit its peak in Mt. Sterling. Newer sets like the 1914 Cracker Jack Issue incorporated color lithography which made cards even more collectible works of art. Demand soared as boys and adults scrambled to find shops still stocking freshly released series. Local drugstores started organizing baseball-themed weekend events with prizes for those who collected the most complete sets. Such promotions kept card fever running high all across town.
Of course, the heyday of tobacco baseball cards would not last forever. As concerns mounted over links between smoking and health issues after 1920, cigarette companies phased out the traditional plant-included card inserts which led to a sharp decline in production. General stores in Mt. Sterling noticed inventory flying off shelves as collectors raced to amass the final tobacco releases before they disappeared. Over subsequent decades, the local card scene graduated to new types of insert cards found in gum, candy and wax packing which sustained interest, albeit losing some of the dedicated following of tobacco’s golden age.
Despite changing trends, Mt. Sterling permanently cemented itself in Bluegrass State baseball card history during those earlier tobacco centuries between 1890-1920. Local collectors took part in the emerging nationwide hobby and fostered early appreciation of the pros. Through stores, trades and events centered around cards, the people of Mt. Sterling formed strong social bonds and memories around their shared interest in the game. Its legacy lives on as one of Kentucky’s earliest hotbeds for the collecting phenomenon which changed how America connected with its national pastime. Today visitors to Mt. Sterling can still glimpse remnants of its significant role in the rich history of baseball cards.
