The Heights Casino was built in Brooklyn Heights in 1904 as a 'country club in the city'. Squash doubles was just beginning life in Philadelphia and then in New York, with several clubs in Manhattan building courts by 1920. Edwin Hicks Bigelow and Hollis Thayer, active Casino members, were prime movers behind the decision to build a doubles court, Brooklyn's first, in 1929. After removal of four bowling alleys, the court literally had to be dug out of the ground. The expenditure required taking out a mortgage, and a boulder too large to be removed had to be buried in a hole in the forecourt. As all of this occurred at the beginning of the Depression, the instigators had to help save the Casino from folding even as they tried to interest members in doubles.

The same Ed Bigelow who led the fundraising drive, and for whom the court is named, also established the Heights Casino Open Doubles Tournament in 1938. Except for wartime years, the tournament has been played continuously ever since, making it the longest running open tournament – singles or doubles – in the country.

In the early years, the winners were both amateur and professional, with George Cummings and both Thomas and Frank Iannicelli repeat winners except when amateurs Richard Remsen and John Russell defeated them. In the post World War II era, the late David C. Johnson, Jr. helped to sustain the tournament. An exemplary sportsman and fine squash player, Johnson won the Heights Casino Open in 1963 with Victor Elmaleh. A year later Johnson suffered an untimely death from a heart attack. A saddened squash community and his fellow members and neighbors paid tribute by renaming the tournament. To generations of players, the tournament will always be known simply as 'The Johnson'.

The decades of the 60's and 70's saw the incursion of the Khans, with Mo Khan winning five times with three partners and showing great skill in partying, too. Then the superbly stylish amateur team of Maurice Heckscher and Michael Pierce dominated until the advent of three time winners David Johnson and Ned Edwards, who provided a foretaste of the power game which became so prevalent.

Late in the 80's Tom Page and Todd Binns arrived and won, along with Kenton Jernigan and Jamie Bentley, who was to win eight times with three partners and reach the finals every single year in the 90's. In 1996 Gary Waite began a string of four victories, two with Bentley and two with Mark Talbott. And just when it appeared Waite was unbeatable and the doubles tour was aging, new faces began to appear, many of them from Canada, Australia and elsewhere and coming from success on the international singles tour. Winners in 2000 and 2001 included Willie Hosey, the Irish champion, and from Canada, Mike Pirnak and Viktor Berg, everyone's rookie of the year in 2001.

In the past two decades, when prize money was hard to come by, Casino members who pride themselves on their doubles activity and their justly famous junior squash programs made the decision to provide leadership in purses, which they did for years without substantial corporate sponsorship. But that is not what causes so many veteran players to call the Johnson 'their favorite tournament'. Rather it is the sense of belonging, from the housing members provide, to the knowledge and enthusiasm of the galleries, the inspiration given to the juniors, and the certainty that this tournament is a centerpiece of the Casino's sporting and social year. Now the International Squash Doubles Association is providing the leadership to attract new and exciting players and larger amounts of prize money, and a number of tournaments, including The Johnson.