ERVING — On a recent weekday afternoon, all 16 lanes at the French King Bowling Center were silent. The place was empty except for two teenage boys sharing a basket of fries in the lounge.
Open since 1959, French King is one of the oldest remaining candlepin alleys in Western Massachusetts, but the crowds and constant clatter of pins that filled the building on Route 2 for so many years are mostly just a memory.
“We used to do 300 league bowlers a night,” says Eric Semb, whose father, Ralph, owns the alley. “We only do 100 a week now.”
In the heyday of candlepin bowling, from the late ‘60s through the early ‘80s, alleys around New England were teeming with players striving, often without much success, to scatter 10 plastic pins with a 2-pound ball. (“Nobody is a good candlepin bowler,” says Bill Ballou, a retired Worcester sportswriter and obsessive bowler. “Some are just worse than others.”)
These days, candlepin is still a thing, though nominally, like a landline or TV antenna. But “Strikes, Spares & Deadwood,” a new exhibition at the Worcester Historical Museum, on display through March, is a compelling reminder that candlepin, which originated in Worcester, was once king.
“When people think museums, they don’t think sports,” says Vanessa Bumpus, exhibits coordinator at the museum, whose permanent collection includes 30,000 items related to the city’s political, social, and cultural past. “But sports are an important part of history.”
Especially, it seems, in Massachusetts, where volleyball (Holyoke), basketball (Springfield), and candlepin all got their start. The museum exhibition, in the works for more than five years, chronicles candlepin’s origin story, which starts in 1880 with Justin “Pop” White, the owner of a local billiards hall who set up skinny wooden dowels — they resembled broomstick handles — and rolled a small wooden ball to knock them down. A decade later, Jack Monsey, a charismatic pool player and promoter, standardized the dimensions of the ball, pins, and lane, and the sport as it’s played today was born.
“I got a note the other day saying the Worcester City Council is putting a plaque on Pearl Street where the first candlepin lane was,” says Bob Parrella, whose father, Emilio, invented the durable, multicolor ball that has been the industry standard for six decades. “I would have thought the city did that already.”
Parrella is president of Paramount Industries, a Medway company that manufactures candlepin, billiard, and bocce balls. He donated some of the vintage balls, pins, and other items that are on display at the museum. “You know the old saying, ‘To know where you’re going, you need to know where you came from,’?” said Parrella. “Well, too many people don’t look at the history.”
Because candlepin balls are lighter than those used in tenpin, which range from 6 to 16 pounds, more people were able to play “small ball.” That helped grow the game. But success in candlepin is not easily achieved. Indeed, a strike — when all 10 pins are felled in one roll — is difficult enough that no one has ever rolled a perfect game in candlepin.
Ralph Semb, the 84-year-old owner of the French King alley in Erving, came closest. Forty years ago at a now-defunct alley in Westfield, Semb bowled a 245 (out of 300) — the highest score in the history of candlepin bowling. His record, which included a remarkable seven consecutive strikes, has been tied once, by Chris Sargent, but never broken.
“It takes a lot of luck and a lot of skill to learn how to play the deadwood,” says Semb, who’s a bona fide celebrity in candlepin circles. “For me to get seven strikes in a row — were they all perfect hits on the 1-3 or 1-2 pocket? No! There was a lot of luck involved!”
The all-time high score for women was set in November by Jenny Rowe, a nurse from Franklin, who bowled a 210 at Ryan Family Amusements in Millis. “I am, honestly, just a very average bowler who had one heck of a miracle game on the opening night of our league,” Rowe demurred in an email.
At the peak of candlepin’s popularity, there were more than 350 alleys in cities and small towns throughout New England. (The sport also caught on in the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.) For a time, it was even must-see TV. Channel 5’s “Candlepin Bowling,” hosted by Don Gillis and, earlier, Jim Britt, aired on Saturday afternoons for nearly four decades, ending in the mid-1990s, eventually building an audience of 200,000 viewers.
But for myriad reasons, the ranks of regular bowlers have thinned dramatically: concerns about liability prompted companies to stop sponsoring bowling leagues; more women went to work outside the home; the cost to repair and replace candlepin machines became prohibitive; rising property values enticed alley owners to cash out; and video games and cellphones siphoned off the younger crowd.
The number of candlepin alleys now is a fraction of what it once was, according to Maria Angelotti, executive director of the International Candlepin Bowling Association. Worcester, where it all began, hasn’t had candlepin bowling since 2020, when the Colonial Bowling Center closed after more than 60 years. The museum show includes a number of items from the Colonial lanes, including its sign, a table and chairs, and bowling shoes. (There’s also a cross section of a candlepin lane, donated by Webster Timber Lanes in Abington, and a vintage pin-trimming machine once used to flatten the bottom of wooden pins.)
To survive, lanes have had to upgrade. Many alleys are more like nightclubs now, with restaurants, bars, loud music, and a barrage of big-screen TVs. For example, Academy Lanes in Haverhill, which opened in 1963, has added an arcade, full bar, and a kitchen. As a result, says owner Ted DiBurro, his 44 candlepin lanes are full most nights.
“You need other revenue streams in addition to bowling,” said DiBurro. “And you need to be reinvesting in the business. Some centers, when they were making all kinds of money, were just pocketing it and not investing back into the business.”
Longtime players like Tim Soucie, who lives in Brattleboro, Vt., and bowls in a weekly league at Semb’s alley in Erving, have watched the number of candlepin players steadily decline, and they wonder what will become of the sport. “Those of us who love candlepin want to see it keep going,” said Soucie, “but we worry.”
For good reason. The two teens eating fries at the French King alley on a recent weekday said they used to bowl occasionally, but not much anymore. Instead, said Jackson Cogswell, a 17-year-old from Turners Falls, he and his buddies go to the mall or just hang out.
“I kind of never think of bowling,” he said. “Maybe I should, though. These fries are really good.”
Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com.