Fighter Jess Willard's retirement

Fighter Jess Willard's retirement

SHAWNEE COUNTY REPORTER
Thursday, April 2, 1959, Page 9


Fighter Jess Willard’s retirement


Jess Willard who was born in St. Clere, Kansas, and is remembered by some of the old-timers here as a horse-trader and livery stable operator at Delis and Emmett, is now living a quiet life in La Cresenta, California. Now in his 77th year the “Pottawatomie Giant” and his wife live very comfortably in their California home and just “take life easy”. They have five children, two sons and three daughters, and seven grandchildren.
In a recent interview with a Los Angeles Herald-Express writer, Willard spoke with a keen memory of his fights with Jack Johnson, Jim Jeffries, Jim Corbett, and Jack Dempsey. It will be exactly 40 years ago on July 4 that Willard lost his heavy-weight boxing championship to Jack Dempsey in Toledo, Ohio. He says he can remember the fight as if it were yesterday and says of the fight that “mobsters took my title that afternoon and I hope to one day complete the true story of what happened. Dempsey had more in his gloves that afternoon than his fist!”
He says Johnson was the greatest fighter of them all. Willard knocked him out in the 26th round to win the championship in Havana in 1915 on April 5 when the temperature was 115.
It’s interesting to learn that Jess says if he had it to do all over again he’d choose another road. He says, “Knowing what I know now I guess I would have just kept on busting broncos instead of becoming a fighter. I got suckered into fighting in the first place. I used to ride herd on horses in Montana, round ‘em up and bring them to Kansas. After breaking “em I’d sell them to the farmers.
“When automobiles came in the horse lost his popularity and when a friend suggested that a big strong guy like me should be a fighter I decided to take a crack at it.”
This retired “man of leisure” is described as a “great guy” by his neighbors and the kids love him. He stands six fee six inches in his stocking feet and weighs in today at 255, just five pounds over his usual fighting weight.

Shawnee County Reporter, Rossville, Kansas

Rossville Community Library

April 2, 1959

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