A slanted board with a hole cut in it. A small beanbag. An underhand toss. Almost everyone knows the game from that basic description. But what’s its true name? Cornhole? Bags?
Whatever you call it, it’s been a staple of tailgating, backyard cookouts and beach parties for generations. Tossing a beanbag through a hole on a board requires enough skill to keep overly competitive friends engaged, but the game is also easy enough that young kids and slightly inebriated uncles can play.
We know the game was popular, more or less, in the Midwest in the mid- to late-19th century, but not exactly where it originated. There are multiple origin stories, the most common of which involves a 14th century cabinetmaker in Bavaria who watched a group of boys entertaining themselves by throwing rocks into the opening of a groundhog den. According to the story, that inspired him to craft a slanted board with a hole and fabric bags filled with dried corn, along with rules for a game that was safer than throwing rocks at a wild animal’s burrow.
Unfortunately for Bavaria’s claim, there are no contemporary accounts of this, and no plausible explanations for why the alleged invention disappeared from the historical record for the next 500 years. What we know for sure is versions of cornhole were being played around the U.S. by the time Heyliger de Windt of Chicago received the first patent related to the game in 1883.
“My present invention has for its object to provide a new game which shall be particularly suited to indoor amusement, and which may be played with apparatus that will be inexpensive, simple, durable, and noiseless,” de Windt wrote in his patent application.
The application describes a “game-board having means for supporting the same in an inclined position, and having an opening through which an object may be tossed” and “bags filled with beans or equivalent mate.”
Calling it “a new game” was a bit of a stretch, even if you discount the Bavarian story, but moving it indoors was novel and in keeping with a growing market for “parlor games.” Windt called the game “Parlor Quoits.”
Quoits is a game that aficionados — almost all of whom are in the U.K. — will tell you is very different from horseshoes, even though it is almost identical to horseshoes. The main difference is you throw a quoit (a ring usually made of metal or stiff rope) at a stake in the ground, instead of a horseshoe.
Quoits clubs sprang up all over England in the 19th century. It was so popular that eventually a tabletop version was created for pubs. The first rulebook for tabletop quoits was published in 1881, two years before de Windt got his patent.
Whether or not de Windt was aware of indoor quoits when he invented his indoor game is unknown. But he wasn’t the only one having those thoughts. A Massachusetts toy company soon introduced “Faba Baga,” which used a slanted board with two holes of different sizes, one large beanbag and some smaller bags.
In the 1890s, newspaper stories about the popularity of games that could have been Parlor Quoits or Faba Baga began to appear, but none of them used those names. They were always referred to generically as beanbag-tossing games.
Cornhole’s biggest surge in popularity is often attributed to a September 1974 article in Popular Mechanics that explained how to build your own game boards and laid out the rules that are still in use in backyards and at tailgates today. Popular Mechanics called the game “bean-bag bullseye.”
That name didn’t stick. As the game went pro in recent decades, cornhole beat out bags for its name. ESPN began occasionally showing American Cornhole League (ACL) tournaments in 2017. (In addition to ACL, there are also two leagues without TV contracts: the American Cornhole Association and the American Cornhole Organization.) But it wasn’t until COVID hit in 2020 that ESPN began leaning on the naturally socially distanced game to fill in programming gaps as sporting events, including the Tokyo Olympics, were cancelled. Ratings grew, and now ACL tournaments are more than just filler content for the cable network.
ACL has 16 pro teams, none of them from Iowa. But Iowa does have one claim to cornhole fame that ACL doesn’t. In 2014, four intrepid local players divided into two teams — Team Fry and Team Gable — set the Guinness World Record for “Longest marathon playing doubles cornhole.”
As part of that year’s Fry Fest in Coralville, the four played 112 back-to-back games of cornhole outside the then-Marriot Hotel and Conference Center. The first bag was tossed at 3 p.m. on a Thursday and the final one landed 26 hours, 12 minutes and 44 seconds later, beating the old record by almost two hours. (It was Fry Fest’s second Guinness entry. In 2010, it set the record for the largest group hokey-pokey with 7,384 dancers.)
After setting the record, Brad Moliterno was asked by the Press-Citizen what it took to finish the marathon cornhole session.
“Just some energy drinks here and there, and staying focused on bringing this world record to Iowa,” he said.
Play like the pros: A summary of ACL’s cornhole rules
Boards: Two 2 ft.-by-4 ft. boards are placed 27 ft. apart. Each has a 6 in. diameter hole. The back is raised 1 ft. above the ground, slanting downwards.
Bags: Two sets of four (6 in.-by-6 in., 5.5-6.5 oz. each)
Teams: Two teams of two players take their place beside a board, across from their teammate (not diagonally). Each round, one player from both teams pitch four bags towards the opposite board. The next round, the other team members will pitch. Rounds continue until the game ends.
Pitching: Underhand and overhand throws are both acceptable. Pitchers may not cross the foul line, which is at the front edge of their board. A round is over when all eight bags have been pitched.
Scoring: Bags through the hole earn three points. Bags on the board get one. A bag dangling over the hole is still one point. Points are totaled at the end of each round. The point total of the lower-scoring team is subtracted from the total of the higher-scoring team, who bank the remaining points. The other team gets no points. The scoring team pitches first in the next round.
Winning: The first team to earn 21 or more points wins. The winning team does not need to beat its rival by two points.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s April 2025 issue.
