On a December day in 1893, a team of players descended into a musty Paris basement, weaving carefully around the court’s iron pillars to lob a ball into fruit baskets hung at each end.

Historians of sport have long held that the gymnasium in a YMCA building in the French capital is the world’s oldest basketball court still in use.

But some 10 weeks before that game in 1893, a similar scene had played out in the Canadian town of St Stephen, New Brunswick, on 17 October.

The court they played on still exists. And locals are keen to assert its place in history.

“Where we are standing right now has huge significance to the sport of basketball,” said Darren McCabe, a local historian in St Stephen, population 4,400. “We say this is the oldest basketball court in the world.”

Where we are standing right now has huge significance to the sport of basketball

Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a Canadian living in Springfield, Massachusetts. It spread quickly around the world, and Lyman Archibald – one of Naismith’s original players – brought it to St Stephen, where it found a home in a recently built YMCA.

The town’s first match, on 17 October 1893, was considering notable enough to be reported in the local newspaper, the Saint Croix Courier. It was not the first basketball game in Canada; the honour likely belongs to Montreal or Toronto, said McCabe, with games taking place on courts that have since been destroyed.

But the court in St Stephen – which sits on the upper level of a unassuming downtown building – is remarkably well-preserved. “Outside of a few coats of paint and maybe a 1940s vintage disco ball, this is original,” said McCabe.

Darren McCabe (left), a local historian, with Tony Whittaker of the St Croix Vocational Centre. Photograph: Ashifa Kassam/The Guardian

The local YMCA was replaced by an athletics association in 1899 and the building later cycled through various uses, ranging from a meeting hall to a recruiting centre during the first world war.

As time went on, the building’s place in sporting history faded from the memories of most, including the vocational society that eventually bought the building and opened a thrift shop on the ground floor.



It was only after a fire tore through the building in 2010 – coming within metres of the court – that they realised the building’s link to basketball, said Tony Whittaker of the St Croix Vocational Centre.

“It was after the fire, when we started tearing this apart and seeing what was damaged and what wasn’t.” They made their way to the upstairs area that they had been using as storage and lifted a blue carpet, and were surprised to find an intact wooden floor underneath. “And then a little light came on.”

The space bears little resemblance to a modern-day basketball court. At 47 x 31ft in size it is much smaller than today’s 94 x 50ft NBA courts, and has no lines or markings. Hooks next to the room’s six windows suggest that screens were lowered during matches to protect the glass. As they played, athletes had to be careful to avoid the gas heaters tucked into the corners of the court.

These features hint at the age of the court; it was built at a time when basketball still did not exist, said McCabe. “You’ve got to remember that every YMCA that was built prior to 1892 was not built for basketball, they were built for calisthenics.”

A map of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia from 1890, a few years before the first basketball game. Photograph: Archive Photos/Getty Images

The games played on this court – most of them taking place before Naismith began tinkering with the rules in hopes of cleaning up the sport – likely looked drastically different from those of today. “I always picture, you’ve got 10 guys rammed in here, in a little place like this, with heaters going, the boys just roughhousing,” he said. “It’s little wonder they didn’t go flying out of the window.”

McCabe is part of a group of locals, calling themselves Canada 1st Basketball, who recently struck a deal with the St Croix Vocational Centre to explore options to preserve the site. The goal is to one day open a basketball museum or tourist facility, said McCabe.

Their ambitious mission got a boost a few years earlier when they invited a semi-pro basketball team from the region to visit the court. “They were kind of like in a basketball temple for themselves,” said McCabe.

The initiative is currently in the early stages, with Canada 1st Basketball working now to map out a business plan while also discussing how best to mark this years upcoming 125th anniversary of the court’s first game.

The hope is to one day use the court to shine a spotlight on St Stephen and its rich history – including housing Canada’s oldest candy company – long overlooked since the town’s heyday in the 1800 and early 1900s.

“Particularly in its recent history, St Stephen has had a really hard economic struggle. When the cotton mill closed in 1957, it was just a slow downward spiral for the community,” said McCabe. “We haven’t had that big push to get us back to where we were. This isn’t going to be the panacea, but it certainly is a piece of that puzzle.”