of the game, as played in Evansville, and surrounding areas, has not yet been established with any certainty. Some lend its beginnings with the European game Klaberjass, while others have said it was brought to the Evansville Ohio River banks by African-American steamboat workers. Clabber, as played locally, dates back to at least 1896 , when several articles were printed in the local newspaper referring to private games. One such article referred to it as "a negro card game". A newspaper article was later published in 1931 indicating the game being played by at least 1881, and possibly as early as 1871 on an Ohio River steamboat by Black workers in Evansville. The article mentions a game played by Black trustees at Evansville police headquarters in 1891. In 1931 Walter Schlang was noted as serving as President of the Evansville Clabber Club In 1935, Leo Bruttrum, Secretary of the Evansville Clabber Club, and his clubmates formed the first known written rules for the game. Prior to this time, the game was played by different rules depending on the venue. Mr. Buttrum wrote to the United States Playing Card Company only to be told that they had no information on such a game. However, the company suggested that Mr. Buttrum, and his club, draft some rules, and send them in to the company for publishing in the updated version of Hoyle, "Hoyle-Up-To-Date". The Evansville Clabber Club copyrighted the name of the game as "Evansville Clabber", and is listed as such in that edition of Hoyle. During WWII, many of the manufacturing plants, such as Servel, Republic Aviation and others began challenging each other to games, and in 1944, the Evansville Clabber League was formed by Servel Inc., Bucyrus-Erie, the Order of Owls, Order of Eagles, Order of Moose, West Side Sportsmans Club, Germania Maennerchor and Knights of Columbus. One long time Clabber champion was Elbert D. Mackey. To this day, Ron and Carolyn Ruminer are known as the two best clabber players ever. Players and cards Clabber is played by four players in fixed partnerships with partners sitting opposite (on tables where the length is longer than the width, players arrange themselves around the table, two on each side, with partners sitting diagonally opposite one another). Cards are dealt, from left to right (or clockwise), to opponent then partner, opponent to dealer. The deck consist of 24 of the standard 52