Others think that Goddard and von Braun started hobby rocketry.

 

Still others point to the "Rocket Boys" of "October Skies" fame.  (BTW - a great film.)

 

Everyone's got an opinion.

 

Hobby rocketry really got started around the late 1960s, when Estes and Centuri started making kits and black powder engines.  When they showed we could launch rockets thousands of feet in the air, and get them back without killing anyone or anything, the craze was on.

 

Somewhere in the 1980s and 1990s, high-power rocketry caught on, and H-I-J-K-L-and M engines became available, mostly by Aerotech. 

 

Additionally, the technology and materials for making even bigger engines be came available, and homemade N, O, P and even Q engines showed up. Occasionally, they even worked!