Printer-friendly version
The year is 1996. The year before was named “50-50 Grind Year” by Transworld Skateboarding Magazine because of the number of grind tricks being performed on rails nationwide. Two skateboard companies, Toy Machine and Zero Skateboards, released skating videos named “Welcome to Hell” and “Thrill of it All”, which incorporated high impact stairs and handrails into street skating.
This was also the year Cowtown Skateboards, an Arizona skate shop, opened. At that time, it wasn’t easy to find a skate park in a nearby neighborhood.
Enter Laura and Trent Martin, owners of Cowtown. Laura was highly passionate about the culture of skating and helped raise money through fundraisers and skate contests for the building of skate parks. In 1997, Desert West, the first skate park in the state, was built in Phoenix.
Televised extreme sports events helped bring skateboarding to the forefront, broadcasting competitions annually. A few years later, Tony Hawk successfully landed a 900 in a competition at the 1999 X-Games.
In 2002, a new park course was added to the X-Games for street skateboarders. Danny Way and Bob Burnquist then added a new extreme element to skateboarding. Way pioneered the Skateboard Big Air competition at the 2004 X-Games. In 2005, Way jumped over the Great Wall of China on his skateboard. Burnquist took extreme to another level by riding down a ramp onto a rail, only to base jump into the Grand Canyon in 2006.
The skateboarding world has seen a complete evolution over the years—culturally, competitively and in popularity. The people at Cowtown have been along for the ride.
One of the managers of Cowtown’s Tempe location, “Peaches,” remembers when he first got into skateboarding.
“I was getting off work at the hotel my mom owned, and I saw all these dudes skating in the underground garage,” he said. “I sat there and watched them skate for two or three hours, and I met Trent and everybody that worked here and rode for the team. I thought, ‘Whoa, that’s awesome, I want to skate.’”
For almost 10 years now, Peaches has been skating. He’s been working at Cowtown for almost five years. “Everyone who works here is part of the team — and we’re all a family.”
The year is 2010. There are three Cowtown skate shop locations in Phoenix, Tempe and Glendale. Cowtown has listed 19 skate parks on its Web site that are located all over Arizona. Some sites, such as sk8parklist.com, are dedicated to locating skate parks around the state and nation, and these sites provide directions to the park and feedback on the park itself from any skater who’s willing to log on and comment.
Skateboarding has become a hobby for people of all ages. It has become more mainstream, too.
“It’s become something to do instead of a lifestyle and has become more of a hobby for some people,” Peaches said. “With skateboarding becoming more popular, it gives people awareness that it’s not just a bunch of dirty kids that skate. A lot of people don’t know this, but Steve Nash skates.”
Cowtown will be sponsoring a competition called the PHX AM Jam on April 10 and 11 at Rio Vista Skate Park in Peoria. Tickets are being sold now on its Web site, cowtownskateboards.com. They hope it will help skateboarding to continue moving forward.
“Everything we do we put back into skateboarding,” Peaches said. “The camaraderie of it is really cool; the people who are true to skateboarding are doing it to enjoy it.”
Reach Shawnnah at
