Ramsey County History – Spring/Summer 1977: “Tough Times: The Sometime Fortunes of Boxing in Early Minnesota”

Tough Times: The Sometime Fortunes of Boxing in Early Minnesota
Author: Junior Pioneer Association of Ramsey County, Minnesota

“Prize fights were rare in St. Paul during the early days, no doubt because fights could be seen for free on the streets or at the levee almost any day.” The first recorded (and illegal) match was held in 1869. The sport’s popularity grew in the 1870s and ‘80s, and celebrated bouts were held in the metropolitan area, often in the country so as to evade the police. By the mid-1880s regular matches were held openly in downtown St. Paul. In time local fighters of some reputation were developed, many of them Irish. Governor William Merriam put the stop to a Bob Fitzsimmons middleweight championship bout to be held in the city in 1891 and apparently got the Legislature to ban it the next year. That send the sport underground, and for a while wrestling passed it in public interest. The popularity of fighter Mike Gibbons helped revive boxing, and the state ban was lifted in 1915.
PDF of Boxing article