I've had this picture of this fantastic old gym in my collection for years and it has always been a mystery as to exactly where it was.  Recently, thanks to the wonder of the internet, we have found out that it this is the interior view of the gymnasium of the Ohio State Armory, in Columbus, Ohio.  This was a pretty typical gym at the time: plenty of wide open space and a variety of available gymnastic training equipment such as traveling rings, medicine balls, tumbling mats,  pommel horses and climbing ropes etc.  Like most gyms of the period, the training options were basic, but more than enough to obtain good results.  The large and very impressive cemi-circular beamed roof was specifically designed to allow in plenty of natural light. The armory was quite a facility,  It was built in 1897 and resembled a Medieval castle, turrets and all, as you can see in the exterior shot below. 

On March 25th, 1967 Pat Casey became the first man to break the 600 pound barrier in the bench press with an official lift of 615 --- Keep in mind that was without a bench shirt, elbow wraps or other nonsense that typically goes on these days. Casey was no one-lift specialist either, as he was also the first man to squat over 800 pounds and total over 2000 pounds in an official contest. For his workouts, Casey used to grab a pair of 210 pound dumbbells, haul them over to the incline bench, get the dumbbells into position, perform his reps, then return the dumbbells to the rack -- all unassisted -- quite a feat of strength in its own right.

Kettlebells? They have a longer history in America than you might think... Case in point,  this "Strength Maker" kettlebell, was produced by Professor Anthony Barker around 1910 or so.  The "Strength Maker" was a set which consister of two hollow globes and various handles.  Depending on what you wanted to train with, you could screw in a short handle to make a dumbbell, a long handle to  make a barbell, or the handle shown above to make a nifty pair of kettlebells.  The globes were hollow and weight could be adjusted with shot as needed .

You've probably seen the old feat of strength where a strongman puts an anvil or a large stone slab on his chest and lets someone hit it with a sledge hammer... but I guarantee you haven't seen this feat before though, -- "The Mighty Atlas," Morris Shapiro, a professional wrestler from Brooklyn, New York, teeth-lifting an anvil while someone else whacks said anvil with a sledge hammer. Now that's impressive! The Mighty Atlas often demonstrated feats of strength before his matches, bending iron bars, snapping chains, ripping phone books etc.  He learned the secrets of strength from his father who was a strongman in the Russian Circus in Minsk.