Quote Originally Posted by pffft View Post
Looking at the entertainment ads in the '40s and '50s papers on microfilm, I was stunned at the number of bowling alleys in Detroit and suburbs...
I bet many of the bowling alleys in the 1940s were of the 10 lane or less bar type places. Before the advent of pinsetters, bowling alleys tended to be smaller. I have never looked at numbers, but if I had to guess, I would say Detroit peaked in terms of total lanes in the late 1950s or early 1960s, after the automatic pinsetter boom.