Old Missoula

John L. Sullivan talks in Missoula – 1905 – (mentions pioneer Larry Lavey)

Tells How To Win Battles

John L. Sullivan Discourses Learnedly On The Fighting Game.

John L. Sullivan, the ex-champion of the world and probably one of the greatest fighters in the history of the prize ring, and who is referred to as the “noblest Roman of them all” by some of the eastern papers, was talking in the lobby of the Florence hotel last evening after he had given a show at the Union theater. The big fellow was in excellent spirits and a smile of merriment passed over his face as he grasped the hand of the reporter, which made that individual gasp with pain, and asked him what he could do for him.

“Well,” said the reporter, as soon as he had recovered from the hand clasp, “you might tell what you think of the fighting game as it is at present.”

“Well, my boy,” said John L. in a tone of voice that made the corridor ring. “I can see that the game is a little on the decline at the present time, but it is on account of the men that are in the game that we find prize fighting on the toboggan. There have been so many rank fakes in the prize ring that the public has become afraid.”

“What did you think of the Britt-Nelson fight?”

“Just as I expected. Did you ever see a boxer whip a fighter?” and the ex-world’s champion straightened up and looked at the reporter with a terrible frown.

“It was 21 years ago that I made this town and it was then a little village with a few log houses and a few frame business places. It has grown a good deal since then.

“I tell you,” continued John L., “that when a man fights he wants to fight and not try to play smart; go right in and try to land your man the first round.

“When I went through your city 21 years ago, I was out with an offer of $1,000 to any man who would stand up before me for four rounds and I knocked a large number of men out during the trip to the coast and return.”

At this time, just as the big fellow was warming up to his subject and telling a good many incidents of his career, his manager butted in and thought it was time to go to bed and the conversation came to an end.

“Just a minute,” said Mr. Sullivan, as he started up stairs to retire. “I saw an old friend whom I met here on my first trip to this country, sitting in the front row at the show tonight. It was Larry Lavey; do you know him?”

“Yes. I wish you would give him this picture of myself, as he has often asked me for one, and if you would deliver this one to him I will be greatly pleased.”

Then the big fellow went away to sleep.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on September 30, 1905.

 

John L. Sullivan was, by 1905, a self-promoter who traveled throughout the country on speaking and acting tours. His engagement at the Union had been promoted in The Missoulian a few days earlier – “The Great and only John L. Sullivan will appear at the Union Friday evening, September 29, in his monologue, telling of his reminiscences of his travels around the world, which are original in every detail and provoke bursts of laughter from start to finish. This is the last appearance of John L. Sullivan before the public in the west. Great and good men cannot always last, and therefore all those who have heard of the great and only John L. Sullivan should take time by the forelock and accept this opportunity of seeing the man that has been talked about more than any other human being living in the world today.”

The quote above is from The Daily Missoulian on September 22, 1905.

Sullivan mentioned a well-known area pioneer, Larry Lavey, who was sometimes called Larry the piper. Born in Ireland in 1840, Lavey arrived in Montana by 1868, and made his way to the Bitter Root shortly after that. He was a brother of Mrs. Robert Carlton and an uncle of Missoula judge Hugh B. Campbell. After selling his Bitter Root property in 1904 he moved to Missoula and bought the American Hotel from O.B.F. Orr.

Carlton, Mt. (Florence) was named for the pioneer Carlton family of eleven children which settled in the Florence area in the 1860’s. Carltons donated land for the Carlton church in 1884.