SET 'EM UP IN ST. LOUIS, LOUIS

The old "see you at the fair" song was never more apt, for the bowlers on these 38 lanes in the St. Louis Armory are just the first of 5,500 (yes, 5,500) teams of bowlers who will be competing there for 60 days in the 56th American Bowling Congress Championships.

Until just four weeks ago the workaday St. Louis Armory resembled any other—vast, dark and covered by a well-used drill floor. Then, in a smoothly humming rush to accommodate bowlers from 44 states, Hawaii and as far away as Saudi Arabia, the sponsors brought in 185,000 lineal feet of pine and maple and a dozen freight carfuls of equipment and turned the old armory into a gleaming success in 19 days.

By the time the last coat of lacquer was applied and the last automatic Pinspotter put in place, St. Louis had a handsome, if temporary, temple for a game that is building shrines to itself in just about everybody's neighborhood these days. Two months hence, after the 1959 championships, the St. Louis Armory will revert to an armory. These shiny new championship alleys? Already bought up for transfer to new sites in the area.

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