Here is a beautiful set of two wooden baseball bats from a long defunct small baseball bat manufacturer outside Waterloo, Illinois which was based in the tiny hamlet of Monroe City in Monroe County, Illinois. Produced in the 1930’s, the two styles of bats known to exist today are the “Waterloo Walloper” and the “Geared to Hit”. The Walloper design was built as a baseball bat while the Geared to Hit version appeared to be made in both a baseball bat design and a corkball style of bat, meaning it was much narrower than the thicker Walloper style of bat. Both of these bats were made off of an old gun lathe in a barn by Harold Baum from 1933-1937. There is a version of the Geared logo with a letter backwards in the brand which was used to imprint the bats at that time. So theoretically there are three styles of actual branding on the bats, albeit one a simple mistake when the brand was designed.
The Huckabay and Baum bats were produced in the 1930’s by Harold Baum on his farm. His salesman was named Huckabay, hence, how the name came to feature both individuals. Made just outside of Waterloo, no one knew where Monroe City was I suspect, so they added the Waterloo name to the bats, as it was a much larger town. I suspect most of their sales were also sold to baseball teams in Waterloo, but surely they sold bats to other areas outside of Monroe County such as Randolph and St. Clair counties and their sports teams too! Today collectors look for the bats including myself. If you have one, I would love to hear from you!