Club of the Month: Charleston TTC

By Dick Evans

The Charleston (WV) Table Tennis Club has been meeting on Monday nights continuously at the same venue since the end of the Second World War, and existed even prior to the war in the basement of the club and league’s founder, Bill Warner, a chemical engineer working for the DuPont Chemical Co.  This small but enthusiastic club may be the oldest continuous club in the United States. 

 In its early years, following the war, the local legends included Herman “Whitey” Lykins (many times state champion), the brothers, Jim & Ed Pierson, Bill Warner and Noble Wyatt.  An 8-10 team league, composed of teams from several of the chemical/industrial plants which lined the banks of the Kanawha River making this area one of the country’s largest chemical centers, played weekly at the North Charleston Community Center, a facility of the Charleston Parks & Recreation Department.

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