padgett

Flynn's Camp Las Vegas N.M. - 1. Al Williams, 2. A.H. Balke, 3. Jim Flynn, 4. C. Colman, 5. Jack Curley, 6. Joe Flynn, 7. C. O'Malley, 8. M.M. Padgett, 9. H. Elfeld (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• 2 older comments, and then…
• Rob Ketcherside said:

  Las Vegas, New Mexico (inscription on the photo makes this clear, but not the Flickr title). In 1912, Jim Flynn fought Jack Johnson in a July 4th match, scheduled to go 45 rounds for the world heavyweight championship. It was broken up after 9 rounds by state police because Flynn, bloody and beaten, had given up any real tactics and was simply trying to launch into Johnson with headbutts. Here's the round-by-round from the New York Times. Another New York Times article from just before the match writes it off as a gimmick match. Flynn was aging and was never a world-class boxer. Johnson was mentioned in the article as two years retired and fat, but he looks in good shape in contemporary photos, and continued fighting for more than fifteen years. "Flynn's Camp" should be regarded as the training camp for the fight, not an actual camp name. Flynn was a fireman in Pueblo, Co. A May 2, 1912 NYTimes article ("$1,100 for Johnson's Training") says that Flynn's camp would be in Montezuma, NM. Jack Curley was Jim's manager for the fight as well as the fight's promoter. Not sure on others in the photo. (by the way, Las Vegas, Nevada, our present-day boxing locus, was in 1912 a year-old city filled with dude ranches for guys wanting to get six weeks of residency for a legal divorce)

• Rob Ketcherside said:

  This photo is a set with two others: Johnson sparring and Flynn posing as if sparring. Inscription on the photo indicates which name goes to which man. From left to right in front: Al Williams, A. H. Balke, Jim Flynn, C. Colman, Jack Curley, Joe Flynn, C. O'Malley. In the back row, left to right, are M. M. Padget and H. Elfeld. Strangely, the man in between the two rows is not named. With leaves just sprouting from the tree, this looks like an early spring photo. The fight was discussed in papers from the end of 1911.

• Rob Ketcherside said:

  This photo was discussed in the Flickr Commons group research thread.

• The Library of Congress said:

  Roketpad: Thank you for the information and your research about this photograph. We will update the source data and reload the description.

• BigBean said:

  Hi, this photo is being discussed in one of the projects in the Flickr Commons group, and we'd love to have this added to the group pool!