Sherman Poppen from
Muskegon, Michigan took two 36-inch skis that had a little leather
strap over the top of them that kids could slide their shoes into.
He added a couple of cross pieces across them about five of six
inches apart. The cross pieces were actually molding so you could
put your feet up against it. His wife called it the 'snurfer'.
He kept improving the design, patented it as a "surf-type snow ski,"
and sold it to Brunswick. By 1970, almost a million of the boards
had been sold.
Jake Burton Carpenter had a competing product he called the 'Burton
Board'. Carpenter's Burton Snowboards would go on to become one of
the largest snowboard brands in the world.
Snowboarders might be riding "snurfboards" today, if Poppen hadn't
been so possessive of his trademark. When he got started and Burton
was calling his board Snurfboards, and his was a Snurfer. He did not
like his name being used so he hired an attorney to protect his
trademark. The sport became snowboarding because Carpenter could not
use the word Snurfer or Snurf.