In this episode, Nell Trustmon tells the story of “George” a western piano man who worked closely with the notorious gambler and boxing promoter, Tex Rickard.
Tex made his first fortune in the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1890s, running saloons and gambling houses with his long-time partner Wyatt Earp. With a fortune in hand, Tex Rickard arrived in Goldfield, Nevada where he built Nevada’s largest saloon which he called the Northern. The Northern was so large that it had three stages and forty gambling tables. It also was next to Nevada’s largest brothel which Tex Rickard secretly owned.
However, Tex Rickard is most remembered today for staging in September 1906, the prize fight between Oscar “Battling Nelson” and Joe Gans. In so doing, he did what many said was not possible. In less than three months, he put together a championship prize fight that is, today, still regarded one of the greatest ever. And he staged the prize fight just a block from his Northern Saloon in Goldfield, Nevada.
To do so, he raised $30,000 (all in gold coins), made special deals with all the various sports gambling syndicates from New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco, and attracted the attention and enthusiasm of the world’s sporting press --- all in a place nobody had ever heard of and could get to only with the utmost difficulty.
Tex Rickard may have been the most brilliant sports promoter of his generation.
Tex Rickard’s next stop was Stingaree Gulch. In a narrow Gulch, just outside the “respectable” mining city of Rawhide, Tex and his various partners opened over 100 saloons, and almost as many gambling dens and dance halls.
In the “Gulch,” Tex created brothels on a massive scale. He printed postcards with photos of scantily clad women and the claim that Stingaree Gulch “had 600 girls on its line --- all nations, all colors.”
“Show this postcard at any bar, and Tex will buy you a round.”
Probably, Tex Rickard’s most audacious pursuit was as the sole promoter of the so-called “Fight of the Century” held in 1910 on July 4th in Reno, Nevada between Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson. From that one fight, Tex may have made over one million dollars. This was before the income tax, and many of Rickard’s deals were either behind-the-scenes or under-the-table, so no one knows for sure.
It also was the first prize fight recorded with movie cameras.
The fight triggered a massive wave of racial violence, since a black athlete soundly defeated America’s “great white hope.”
