GJTA History

While the modern game of tennis (first called lawn tennis) originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1800s, tennis began gaining widespread popularity in America in the 1920s and Johnstown was no exception. Many tennis courts were built in and around Johnstown in the 1920s, although at that time they mainly would have been natural clay courts or just hard packed dirt. More exotic surfaces such as grass or crushed brick were more difficult to build and maintain and were typically reserved for the wealthy. Organized tennis first developed as neighborhood clubs, each operating independently. In 1930, the Tribune newspaper (prior to its merger with the Democrat newspaper) sponsored the first open tennis tournament in Johnstown at Roxbury Park. Unsure what to expect, the tournament was scheduled for up to one week if necessary, but it attracted nearly 200 participants and ran for several weeks. The tournament was wildly successful and plans were made to make it an annual event bringing together players from outside the area as well as from the local neighborhood clubs. While the lineage back to 1930 can be debated, the Greater Johnstown Tennis Association still holds an annual open tennis tournament in Johnstown that arguably can be traced back to the first "Tribune Tournament" in 1930.

It is unclear how large or formally organized each neighborhood tennis club was in the 1920s or 1930s, but newspaper accounts of the day indentify tennis clubs from neighborhoods such as Brownstown, Westmont, Ferndale, Suppes, Orchard, Coopersdale, Windber and South Fork. As tennis grew in popularity, the game found favor among executives of major local companies such as the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, who built tennis courts outside their management club on Menoher Boulevard in Westmont. The evolution of organized tennis in Johnstown continued in the 1960s when employer-sponsored teams came together to form a league. Thus began the Greater Johnstown Tennis Association or GJTA. Originally the GJTA was divided between an "A" league and a "B" league, separated by perceived playing ability. Players who won the B league championship were moved to the A league. Eventually the A and B leagues were merged and players were divided into four teams that played as teams working toward a team championship.