Editor’s note: the following is the first in a three-part series highlighting the Black Diamond sporting scene in the first half of the 1900s. Subsequent stories will address baseball and soccer.

By T.J. Martinell

The Maple Valley/Covington Reporter

At the turn of the century in Black Diamond the sport of boxing was a popular form of entertainment.

As a coal mining town, where all of the men worked long hours performing manual labor, it was capable of producing more than a few big, muscular men who could knock someone out with a single punch.

“We were all tough little buggers,” said Jack Thompson, who grew up on Baker Street.

Carl Steiert said as a boy he’d be shining shoes in the barbershop when boxers would put on their trunks in the back room and warm up. His recollections were published in the book “Black Diamond: Mining the Memories.”

Like sports, alcohol was very prominent in the town, and sometimes the two were mixed together a little too much.

“Some of those old guys were half looped before they ever got into the arena,” Steiert said. “They would be sucking on a bottle.”

According to Steiert, professional boxers would come to Black Diamond and would train in the hotel.

On the bottom floor of the high school building, fathers like Gomer Evans Jr.’s would train him and his brothers with punching bags, speed bags and jump ropes. On Saturdays, they would set up a smoker in the school gym and fight in assigned weight classes.

A smoker refers to boxing matches between members of a private organization in which there were no prizes for winning.

Thompson said the event wasn’t delegated just for adults, as kids would put on gloves too big for them and fight other kids, like his 7-year-old brother, Jerry.

“People would throw money at them if they had a good fight,” Thompson said. “They learned to scoop up change in their gloves.”

Sometimes, Steiert said, “They (professional boxers) needed sparring partners. They would have all of us kids down there getting bloody noses.

“We would beat the hell out of each other.”

Boxing was also a way for newcomers in town to prove themselves and make a good impression to the rest of the men, according to Thompson.

For years, boxing matches in Black Diamond took place at the ball park next to the grandstand or at the show hall.

Although the competitions were amateur, the crowds were just as big as a professional match.

Men and women would fill the bleachers wearing their Sunday best suits and dresses.

Gomer Evans Jr., Black Diamond’s former mayor, said if his father wasn’t able to watch a boxing match, the Evans family would sit around the radio and listen to a fight, no matter what else was on at the time.

Although most of the boxers never became famous, the Black Diamond men were known for their perseverance, strength and toughness.

“My dad never received any injuries,” Thompson said. “He created them.”

Gomer Evans Jr. recalled a fight between two local boxers, Leonard Kuzaro and Clyde Johnson, in the late 1930s, which was referred to as “the fight of the century.”

“People just talked it up,” he said, when asked how the fight got its name.

During the fight, he said, “They were beating each other hard.”

No boxer seemed to have ever reached the level of notoriety as that of the “Mighty” Jimmy Sullivan, who lived in Black Diamond during the early 1900s.

Weighing less than a 100 pounds and standing roughly 5-foot-4, Sullivan was not exactly Rocky Balboa or Jake LaMotta. What he didn’t have in size he made up for in determination and fearlessness, two qualities which were necessary for the brutal bare-knuckle boxing he participated.

Incidentally, Sullivan also became known for drinking a bit too much. On Saturday nights it was customary for miners to go to the local saloon and celebrate the end of the work week together. Sullivan would arrive, have a few beers, challenge people to a fight, and then stumble back to his home near the Green River Gorge. According to Steiert, he always got lost in the dense woods and bushes. Drunk and only 50 feet away from the main road, he would shout for help.

“Man lost! Man lost! And a damn good one, too! Five dollars to anybody who can find me,” Sullivan reportedly yelled out.

Another Sullivan story was born one Saturday night at the town saloon in 1899. Drunk, he challenged Bob Hodge, Black Diamond’s 6-foot-4 town sheriff and champion heavyweight boxer, to a “friendly” match. Due to the large amount of spilled beer on the floor, Hodge slipped and fell when Sullivan managed to land a punch. Everyone in the saloon managed to persuade an inebriated Sullivan he had actually knocked Hodge down.

Sullivan seemed to have believed it wholeheartedly. In the Black Diamond Museum there is a photo of “Mighty Sullivan” with a caption which quoted him as saying, “I can lick any man in the world, and Canada, too!”