Baseball cards have been collected by fans for over 150 years and the small town of West Plains, Missouri is no exception. Located in Howell County in southern Missouri, West Plains has a rich history with America’s pastime and the cardboard collectibles used to commemorate players and teams.
Some of the earliest baseball cards produced in the late 1800s featured players from local amateur and semi-pro teams based in West Plains. While these early promotional cards did not feature the sophisticated designs and production values of later Topps, Fleer and other major brands, they captured the excitement of the sport at the grassroots level. Many of these primitive homemade cards have survived and are highly prized by local historians and collectors today.
The first nationally distributed baseball cards reached West Plains in the early 1900s from companies like American Caramel, E90 and T206. Young fans would eagerly search through packs, hoping to find stars from the major leagues. Drug stores, general stores and even barber shops sold these early packs. Some of the most iconic and valuable early cards depicting Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie and Cy Young made their way into collections in West Plains.
In the 1930s, Goudey Gum Company released some of the most visually striking and collectible baseball cards of the pre-war era. Their shiny cardboard fronts and player biographies on the back made them a step above prior issues. West Plains kids traded and swapped these highly coveted Goudey cards on porches, in alleys and at local ball fields. Stars of the day like Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott and Dizzy Dean were household names even in small town Missouri.
Topps took over the baseball card market after the war and truly exploded the hobby’s popularity with colorful, photograph centric designs in the 1950s. Their innovative use of color and focus on active players, not just retired greats, resonated with a new generation of fans. West Plains saw the rise of card shops, usually attached to drug stores or five and dime stores. Here, kids could purchase wax packs of Topps or compare collections and trade duplicates. Players on winning Little League and American Legion teams in West Plains were sometimes rewarded with packs of cards by local sponsors.
The 1960s saw Topps dominate the market, producing innovative subsets and high action photography that captured the excitement of the modern national pastime. Their rival Bowman also produced cards during this decade before ceasing production. In West Plains, card collecting became a true craze, with some kids amassing collections numbering in the thousands. Some enterprising young collectors even purchased boxes directly from Topps to break open and sell packs individually for a small profit. Local card shows also emerged as popular gathering spots.
The 1970s were a golden age for oddball and regional baseball cards produced outside the Topps monopoly. Many captured unique minor league and independent league teams. West Plains was featured on several such issues from companies like Diamond Kings, TCMA and Pacific. These spotlighted stars and teams from the St. Louis Cardinals farm system who played exhibition games in West Plains. Local hobby shops thrived selling these specialty cards alongside the flagship Topps and Donruss/Fleer issues of the time.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the sport gained even more popularity and the advent of higher end premium and insert cards elevated collecting to an art form. Regional hobby shops in West Plains stocked factory sets, wax boxes and memorabilia cards from the major brands as well as oddballs. The rise of online collecting via the internet also allowed rural fans easier access to the exploding number of modern issues and players. Card shows in nearby cities also drew many collectors from West Plains.
Today, baseball card collecting remains a popular pastime in West Plains, even as the sport has declined somewhat in participation at the youth and amateur levels. While national brands like Topps, Bowman and Panini release the bulk of modern issues, collectors still seek out the unique regional minor league and independent league cards of days gone by that pictureballplayers who once performed for West Plains fans. Online groups also allow collectors to share memories, collections and discuss the history of America’s favorite cardboard collectibles in their small Missouri town.