who invented skateboarding

Skateboarding was not invented by a single person but evolved over time, primarily by surfers in Southern California in the late 1940s to 1950s. These surfers wanted to "surf" on land when the waves were flat, so they attached roller skate wheels to wooden boards, an early form of "sidewalk surfing" that led to skateboarding as we know it today. The first manufactured skateboards were produced in the early 1960s by a Los Angeles surf shop owner, Bill Richards, who ordered skateboard wheels from the Chicago Roller Skate Company and attached them to wooden boards. Key figures in the development of modern skateboarding include Larry Stevenson, who in 1969 invented the "kicktail," a crucial innovation allowing better control and tricks, and Frank Nasworthy, who in the early 1970s invented the urethane skateboard wheel, greatly improving safety and performance. Thus, skateboarding was a collective invention of surfers and innovators rather than a single inventor, with major contributions by people like Larry Stevenson for the kicktail and Frank Nasworthy for wheel technology, alongside the early creative efforts of Southern California surfers in the 1940s-1950s.