Ripley's Believe It or Not! Atlantic City

Ripley was one of the most famous people in the world during the first half of the 20th century. Born LeRoy Ripley in 1890 in Santa Rosa, California, “Roy” was an avid artist and a great athlete at a very young age. He pitched semi-pro baseball at age 13 and also illustrated the posters advertising the games. At age 14, he sold his first cartoon to LIFE Magazine for eight dollars. By age 15, Ripley was working at the San Francisco Bulletin and soon moved on to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1913, he moved to New York and, as ‘Robert’, rather than ‘Leroy’, he began working at the New York Globe sketching sports cartoons. After having done this for several years, Ripley came upon a slow sports day and decided to draw up nine unusual sports event in small sketches. The cartoon was originally titled, “Champs and Chumps”, but after much deliberation, the title was changed to Believe It or Not!. The rest is history!