10/15/2026
In 1921, James Biggs, a photographer from Bristol, England, became blind following an accident Because he was feeling uncomfortable with the amount of traffic around his home, he painted his walking stick white to be more easily visible.
In 1930, Lion George A. Bonham, President of the Peoria Lions Club (Illinois) introduced the idea of using the white cane with a red band as a means of assisting the blind in independent mobility. The Peoria Lions approved the idea, white canes were made and distributed, and the Peoria City Council adopted an ordinance giving the bearers the right-of-way to cross the street.
News of the club activity spread quickly to other Lions clubs throughout the United States, and their visually handicapped friends experimented with the white canes. Overwhelming acceptance of the white cane idea by the blind and sighted alike quickly gave cane users a unique method of identifying the special need for travel consideration among their sighted counterparts.
Today white cane laws are on the books of every state in the US and in a few other countries providing persons who are blind a legal status in traffic. The white cane universally acknowledges that the bearer is blind.
