The first climbing walls and gyms.

The first artificial walls

Which structure was the first artificial climbing wall is disputed, and both early candidates rest on secondary accounts.

• Belgium, 1937. Wikipedia, citing Mark Sebille's book "Bel'Wall", reports that King Leopold III of Belgium commissioned a climbing wall near his palace in 1937. We could not confirm this from another source.
• Seattle, 1938 to 1939. Schurman Rock, at Camp Long in Seattle, was built in 1938 to 1939. Wikipedia says some believe it was the first artificial climbing structure in the United States. A 2018 book by Jeff Smoot, described in local press seen as a search summary, calls it the world's first artificial climbing wall.

If the Belgian report is right, the 1937 wall came before Schurman Rock, which would contradict Smoot's claim.

Climbing magazine's history of the climbing gym (updated 18 June 2024) says adjustable wooden climbing walls existed in France in the 1950s.

The Leeds wall

Wikipedia says Don Robinson, a physical education lecturer at the University of Leeds, created the first modern artificial wall in the UK in 1964 by setting pieces of rock into a corridor wall. Climbing magazine gives no build date for the Leeds wall, but describes John Syrett, aged 18, training on it in 1968.

Climbing magazine also says the University of Washington put up a 40-foot outdoor climbing wall in 1975. Before commercial gyms, according to a search summary of Climbing Business Journal (CBJ), European climbing walls were mostly parts of university buildings or fitness gyms.

Holds that could be moved

Moulded holds that bolt onto a wall can be moved and reset. Two people are credited with early holds and panels, and their dates overlap:

Climbing magazine follows the idea to the United States. It says Chris Grover and Alan Watts saw Savigny's resin holds at a European trade show in 1986 and brought samples home to Bend, Oregon. Grover began designing hangboards and sculpted tiles at Metolius in the summer of 1987, and Watts and Grover founded Entre-Prises USA in the autumn of 1988. Watts also appears in the Smith Rock story on sport climbing and bolts.

The first commercial gyms, 1987

Brussels

Wikipedia says Terres Neuves opened in Brussels, Belgium, on 16 May 1987, run by Isabelle Dorsimond and Marc Bott, and calls it the world's first indoor climbing gym. No other source in our research confirms the claim.

Seattle

Rich Johnston and Dan Cauthorn opened the Vertical Club in a Seattle warehouse, later renamed Vertical World. Climbing magazine calls it the first commercial climbing gym in the United States and says Johnston came up with the idea in January 1987 while on Aconcagua. Wikipedia says it began selling memberships in late October 1987, which it says made it the first indoor climbing gym in North America.

CBJ (25 May 2018) says the first walls were made of plywood with epoxy paint and real rocks glued to the surface, and that local climbers at first said the idea would fail. The details of the opening differ:

• Year: Climbing magazine and Wikipedia give 1987. CBJ's 2018 article marks the gym's thirtieth anniversary, which implies about 1988.
• Plywood: CBJ describes 3/4-inch plywood; another CBJ account, seen as a search summary, gives 2-inch plywood.

Britain

Wikipedia says The Foundry Climbing Centre in Sheffield opened in 1991 as the first commercial climbing wall in the UK. This was not confirmed by another source.

Gyms and outdoor standards

Climbing magazine (2024) points to two cases as signs of how gym training changed outdoor climbing: Ben Moon training in a cellar gym before his 1990 ascent of Hubble, and Chris Sharma, who started in a gym at 12 and climbed Necessary Evil (5.14c) in 1997 at 15.

The same article cited, for around 2018, more than 600 commercial gyms in the United States, more than 280 in Germany and more than 500 in Japan. Those are Climbing magazine's figures for that period; current counts, with their sources, are on climbing gyms.

Industry bodies

As gyms multiplied, they formed trade bodies:

• Climbing Wall Association (CWA). The CWA says it began inside the Outdoor Recreation Coalition of America, now the Outdoor Industry Association, and became an independent nonprofit in May 2003. It names Bob Richards, Rich Johnston and Nate Postma as founding board members.
• Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC). The ABC says it was founded in 1994 (ABC news, 6 May 2025). An older UKClimbing notice, seen as a search summary, says it had been trading since 1995. We could not settle which is right.

Competitions moved onto artificial walls in the same years; see competition climbing. How gyms work today is described on indoor climbing.