P6 The SpokeSman • WedneSday, July 21, 2021
OFFBEAT
OREGON
OFFBEAT OREGON
Citizens hired boxer to humiliate town bully
Their only regret is that Cold-
well did not get the beating
they had mapped out for him.”
Their regret was probably
short-lived. The article about
the fight appeared in the Sun-
day Oregonian the very next
morning, at the very top of the
front page, under a giant head-
line reading, “JUST A QUIT-
TER: Boring’s Town-Terror
Done by Prize Fighter.”
“When He Gets a Blow in
the Stomach, Free Coldwell
Screams ‘No Fair,’ and Quits for
Good,” one of the sub-head-
lines added.
After that, there was no way
Free Coldwell could stay in
town and face the people he’d
been lording over for the pre-
vious few months. It’s not clear
how long he stayed in Boring
after this humiliation, but it
was probably a matter of hours.
And as author Haney puts it,
“there are no references to Free
Coldwell harassing the town of
Boring again.”
(Sources: Eccentric Tales
of Boring, Oregon, a book by
Bruce Haney published in 2021
by The History Press; Portland
Sunday Oregonian, 26 Feb
1905)
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
Offbeat Oregon
All through the summer of
1973, there was one song on
the radio everywhere that you
just couldn’t get away from: Jim
Croce’s smash hit, “Bad, Bad
Leroy Brown.”
Come to think of it, it’s been
very difficult to get away from
that song ever since Croce
wrote it. You probably are
humming it to yourself right
now: “Bad, bad Leroy Brown,
baddest man in the whole
damn town. Badder than old
King Kong, meaner than a
junkyard dog.”
The little Cascade-foothills
town of Boring once had its
own Bad, Bad Leroy Brown —
although when the song came
out, very few people then alive
were old enough to remem-
ber him. His name was Free
Coldwell — or at least, that
was what he called himself.
Like Leroy Brown, he a proud,
strutting tough guy who got a
humiliating comeuppance. But
his downfall didn’t come from
making a pass at “the wife of a
jealous man” in a Boring night-
club or bar. No, Free Coldwell
was taken down by the citizens
of Boring, who basically played
an elaborate practical joke on
him — with the help of a pro-
fessional prizefighter.
Free Coldwell blew into
Boring sometime in late 1904,
probably to work at one of the
local sawmills. To judge from
descriptions in newspaper
stories, he was a bit like Bluto
from the old Popeye cartoons
— a big, burly man with mas-
sive, muscular arms and a hot
temper. Unlike Bluto, though,
Coldwell had bright red hair.
And he claimed he was, or
had been, a professional prize-
fighter.
He quickly made a name for
himself as a bar-room brawler.
Then, according to an arti-
cle in the Sunday Oregonian,
having successfully “walloped
into dreamland” all the other
aspirants to the title of Baddest
Man In Town, he proceeded
to make an absolute pest of
himself. He swaggered around
like — well, like Bad, Bad Le-
roy Brown on the south side of
Chicago. If there had been such
a thing as a custom Continen-
tal or an El Dorado in 1905, he
doubtless would have had one.
Well, like most little tim-
ber-and-farming towns in
pre-war Oregon, Boring had
its share of tavern tough guys.
But the vast majority of Bor-
ing residents were regular folks
just trying to do their jobs and
raise their families. Getting
constantly lorded over by some
cocky sorrel-topped gorilla was
humiliating and frustrating.
Something had to be done.
And that’s when someone
opened a copy of the Port-
land Morning Oregonian and
learned that Tommy Burns was
in town.
Tommy Burns was a pro-
fessional prizefighter from
Canada, and if you were into
boxing in 1905, you definitely
knew his name. He was the
up-and-coming heavyweight
fighter, even though at 5 feet 7
and 175 pounds he was techni-
cally a light-heavyweight boxer.
His nickname was “The Little
Giant of Hanover.” He wasn’t
the World Champion yet, but
two years later he would be,
and he’d hang onto the title, de-
fending it against all comers,
for two whole years.
Burns had a match coming
up with Jack “Twin” Sullivan,
and was doing some training
for it in a local Portland gym.
And it occurred to some of
the citizens of Boring that per-
haps Tommy Burns could be
induced to come to their town
for a little extracurricular box-
ing match, and teach the town
bully some humility. And so a
delegation from Boring hopped
on the inter-urban train for the
one-hour journey to Portland
to make the pitch.
They didn’t have much of
a purse to offer — after they’d
passed the kitty around, there
was only $4.90 in it (worth
about $120 in 2021 currency).
But the opportunity to help the
townspeople dispense poetic
justice to a swaggering small-
town bully must have appealed
to Tommy. He agreed to come
out to Boring and take on Free
Coldwell.
According to the Sunday
e
Submitted photo (Library of Congress)
Tommy Burns (Noah Brusso) spars with a friend, circa 1905.
The railway
station in
Boring as it
appeared in
1904. This
would have
been how
the Portland
spectators
got to Boring
to watch the
Burns-Cold-
well “fight.”
Submitted
to come the good citizens of
Boring will congratulate them-
selves,” the Oregonian’s re-
porter wrote. “They have rid
themselves of the town pest.
Finn J.D. John teaches at Oregon
State University and writes about odd
tidbits of Oregon history. His book,
Heroes and Rascals of Old Oregon, was
recently published by Ouragan House
Publishers. To contact him or suggest a
topic: finn@offbeatoregon.com or 541-
357-2222.
C lässifie U
the redmond
Spokesman
Hours:
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Oregonian’s subsequent article
about the fight, the good peo-
ple of Boring placed only one
restriction on Burns: He was
not to risk killing Coldwell in
the fight. Funerals, after all,
were expensive.
Now, Tommy Burns’ real
name was Noah Brusso, so that
was the name he used when he
came to Boring. The townsfolk
staging the show were worried
that if Free Coldwell learned
who he was battling with, he’d
figure out a way to back out.
They might have been right.
In any case, Coldwell took the
bait in one gulp. He took one
look at “Noah Brusso” — who
was considerably shorter and a
good 40 pounds lighter than he
— and, as the Oregonian put it,
“fell for it as easy as did Farmer
Vance when he was gold-
bricked out of $10,000.” Follow-
ing a brief, truculent negotiation
over who would cover the 75-
cent venue rental fee — which
he did not want deducted from
the winner’s pot, which he con-
fidently expected to win — he
was eager and ready to go.
A boxing ring was put to-
gether in the local opera house,
and the townspeople hired a
professional boxing referee:
Tommy Tracey, an almost-re-
tired prizefighter originally
from Australia.
On the big day, more than
100 Portlanders came out to
see the show. It’s not clear how
many of them thought they
were going to see a real fight,
and how many were in on the
gag. Plenty of the residents of
Boring knew, and it is possible
that their success in keeping
the secret from Coldwell was
because they were unusually
discreet, not because Coldwell
was unusually gullible. But as
the late John Prine might have
put it, Coldwell clearly had
muscles in his head that had
never been used. He never sus-
pected a thing until well into
the fight.
Finally it was show time,
and the gong rang, and the
Boring Bruiser came charging
out of his corner. “Brusso,” ob-
viously playing to the crowd,
held back, letting Coldwell get
in a few punches and even go-
ing down a couple times. The
crowd roared — those who
were in on the gag with delight,
and those who still thought
this was a legitimate boxing
match with astonishment.
They could see that Coldwell
was a terrible boxer. Was the
great Tommy Burns losing his
touch?
No. No, he was not. At
the end of the fourth round,
“Brusso” decided that it was
time to spring the trap. Ac-
cordingly, he put a hard
straight right past Coldwell’s
guard with proper professional
snap. It exploded on Coldwell’s
nose and, as the boxing press
of the day often put it, “started
the claret.” And this appears to
have been the moment when
Coldwell realized he was in
some serious trouble.
The gong sounded, the
round ended, and Coldwell
got a little time to think about
things while he dealt with his
nosebleed. In light of subse-
quent events, there’s certainly
a decent chance that one of the
thoughts that passed through
his mind was the possibility
that he might end the match by
faking a foul.
All too quickly, it was time
for Round Five. Right away,
“Brusso” clinched and then
broke away with a body blow
to Coldwell’s midriff. It wasn’t
a hard hit, but Coldwell wasn’t
expecting it and was not ready
for it.
“Just as soon as the red-
headed piker could get his
breath, he howled, ‘It’s no fair to
hit a man in the stomach,’” the
Oregonian reported. “’That’s
a foul!’
Coldwell jumped out of the
ring to stop the fight while he
pressed his suit. Nobody was
impressed, least of all the ref-
eree: “Tommy Tracey almost
threw a fit,” the Oregonian re-
ported.
Tracey told Coldwell to shut
up and that if he wasn’t back
in the ring in two minutes,
“Brusso” would be declared the
winner.
“The clock was started, and
the crowd waited with antici-
pation,” author Bruce Haney
writes in his new book, Eccen-
tric Tales of Boring, Oregon.
“The townsfolk had put a lot
of effort into this fight. They
did not want Free Coldwell
dead, but they did want him
maimed. A bloody nose and a
punch to the stomach did not
live up to the beating they had
plotted for him. But the clock
ran out, and Free Coldwell
did not get back in the ring.”
So Tracey raised Burns’ arm
and declared him the victor.
It was pretty obvious to ev-
eryone what had happened:
After figuring out how se-
verely outclassed he was,
Coldwell was trying to use
this “foul” as a pretext for
withdrawing from the field.
They probably all assumed
he knew perfectly well that
body blows were not fouls, and
figured he was pretending ig-
norance because he’d become
desperate for an excuse to dis-
engage.
If so, it sure didn’t work very
well. Unlike Bad, Bad Leroy
Brown, Free Coldwell did not
look “like a jigsaw puzzle with
a couple pieces gone” after this
fight; but his reputation sure
did.
“Today and for many days
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IN
THE
CIRCUIT
COURT OF THE
STATE OF ORE
GON
FOR THE COUNTY
OF DESCHUTES -
PROBATE DEPART
MENT
In the Matter of the Es
tate of:
BLU RAY BLAKELEY,
Deceased.
Case No. 21PB01482
NOTICE TO INTER
ESTED PERSONS
NOTICE IS HEREBY
GIVEN that the un
dersigned has been
appointed Personal
Representative
of
the estate. All per
sons having claims
against the estate
are
required
to
present them, with
vouchers attached,
to the undersigned
Personal
Repre
sentative in care of
Scott Howard, Kivel
& Howard LLP, 1530
SW Taylor Street,
Portland, OR 97205-
1819, Tel: (503) 796-
0909; Fax:
(503)
802-4757;
within
four (4) months of
the date of first pub
lication of this notice,
as stated below, or
such claims may be
barred.
All persons whose
rights may be affect
ed by the proceeding
may obtain addition
al information from
the records of the
court, the Personal
Representative,
or
the attorney for the
personal represen
tative. Dated and first
published July 21,
2021 .
By: s/ Althea Stockton
Brooks
IN
THE
CIRCUIT
COURT OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
FOR THE COUNTY
OF
DESCHUTES
PROBATE DEPART
MENT
In the Matter of the
Estate of DONALD
JAMES SOMMER.
Deceased.
Case No. 21PB05088
NOTICE TO INTER
ESTED PERSONS
NOTICE IS HERE
BY GIVEN that MI
CHELLE
LOUISE
QUESNEL has been
appointed Personal
Representative
of
the above-captioned
Estate.
All
per
sons having claims
against the Estate
are
required
to
present them to the
Personal Represen
tative at the address
shown below within
four months after the
date of first publica
tion of this Notice.
All persons whose
rights may be affect
ed by the probate
proceeding
may
obtain additional In
formation from the
court records, the
Personal Represen
tative or the attor
ney for the Personal
Representative.
DATED AND FIRST
PUBLISHED this 14
day of July, 2021.
/s/ Ryan E. Gibb, OSB
#972693
PERSONAL
REP
RESENTATIVE MI
CHELLE
LOUISE
QUESNEL
19382
Rim
Lake
Court
Bend, OR 97702
(541)610-4376
ATTORNEY Ryan E.
Gibb, OSB #972693
DOUGLAS,
CON-
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Suite 200 PO Box
469
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Facsimile: (503)585-
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Email: Ryan@dcm-
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