The Stanley Buresh Scavenger Hunt

     While I was working on my first book on the history of wrestling in Alabama, I was fortunate enough to track down family of some of the wrestlers that appeared in the state in the 1930s.  One of those family members was David Buresh, the youngest son of the Kangaroo Kicker, the Australian Bushman, Stanley Buresh.   As with most things in the wrestling business, the truth was somewhat different than the gimmick.  The moniker seems to have been given to him by a promoter in Texas, attempting to add some pizzazz to the young light heavyweight, due to his ability to throw a dropkick, hit his opponent and land on his feet.  Kind of like kangaroo do.

     Stanley Buresh was not, in fact, an Australian, he was born on the 13th of March 1903 (or 1901 according to family records) in Bohemia, which would shortly become part of Czechoslovakia, and what is now the western half of the Czech Republic.  When he was still a young boy, his family emigrated to the United States, in 1909, and settled in the area of Dodge, Nebraska.  As many Bohemia immigrants had done, Stanley's father Josef brought his family to eastern Nebraska and set about farming.

     If someone wanted to learn wrestling, there is quite possibly no better place they could have landed in the 1910-1920 time period than Dodge, as that just happened to be the home town of one Joe Stecher, wrestling's heavyweight champion of the world, and his brother Anton, or Tony.  The Stecher brothers trained a great many boys to be wrestlers at the Y.M.C.A. in Dodge, among them the Buresh brothers, Stanley and his older brother, Frank.  Both would go on to wrestle professionally for many years, Frank wrestling for some 20 years before giving up the mat to focus on farming, and Stanley for some 30 years before finally retiring from the business in the early 1950s.  In the course of that 30 year odyssey, Stanley would make it as far as New Zealand in 1931, but he never actually made it to Australia.

     After chatting with David, he sent me several photos, some newspaper clippings and this listing that detailed the first 64 matches of Stanley Buresh's career.  As the list is undated, I decided to attempt to track down the details of each of these matches to see what I could chronicle of the young wrestler's just entering the professional game.

   The record states that Stanley "started professional wrestling in the month of March, at Omaha, Nebraska, state tournament, at the age of 19 years.  That tournament took place on March 26, 1921.  The Omaha World-Herald listed Earl Caddock, Wayne Munn and Farmer Burns as referees, though the results only mention Munn (heavyweights) and Burns (middleweights) working the event, along with Walker Barnaby (lightweights).  Among the participants, aside from both Buresh brothers were one Andrew Lutzi of Lincoln, who would go on to a long wrestling and promoting career as Paul Jones, and Rudy Hason, who would also have a long wrestling and promoting career as Rudy Dusek.  Both future heavyweights won their divisions, Hason already a heavyweight, and Lutzi the light heavy bracket.

    Of the 64 matches listed, thus far, I have found newspaper records for 32 of them, while also finding another 9 matches that were not listed.  There are also a few that may not have actually happened, or at the very least garnered absolutely no mention in the local papers.  I did find that Buresh briefly wrestled under the name Ernest Misek, possibly due to a shortage of viable opponents once he had built a reputation in Kansas and Nebraska in 1923.

    During his homesteading in Wolf Point, Montana, in 1925, Stanley participated in a three day wrestling tournament as part of the Wolf Point Stampede.  From Thursday, July 9 to Saturday, July 11, he defeated Elwood House, Jake Armand and Dick Daviscourt.  While the list ends with his 24 March 1926 victory over Bill Pappas, Buresh would continue to appear in Wolf Point through November of that year.  In December 1926, he moved on to the Pacific Northwest and connected with Ted Thye, and it was through Thye that Buresh would join a tour of New Zealand in 1931.

     You can view the wrestling record of Stanley Buresh at WrestlingData.com.  While not complete, it is ever-growing as I, and other researchers, fill in more wrestling cards each day.

Stanley Buresh @ WrestlingData.com

 I am compiling the information as I find it to a Google Docs spreadsheet.  An 'X' denotes a match found in newspapers that was not on the original list.

Resources for Wrestling Research

[This post will be a work-in-progress, and will change as I become aware of new resources.]

 

    A good place to start when researching a wrestler, promotion, or other related subject are newspaper archives.  Every day hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of old newspapers are being digitized, made searchable through OCR (optical character recognition) technology and released to the web.  Some such resources are free to the public, some are provided as commercial products.  Some of those commercial options are available through agreements with local public library systems, and so are effectively free for patrons.  For most of the following, I will just be using the term 'wrestler' to include anyone associated with the business be they actual wrestlers, referees, managers or promoters, just to save time.

Aside from just articles, ads and results for wrestling shows, newspapers also bring us news of accidents, deaths and obituaries, weddings, and often retrospective articles when a retired wrestler becomes something of a local icon.

Newspapers (free)
ChroniclingAmerica.log.gov is a newspaper digitization program headed by the United States Library of Congress, and has a goal to digitize all available newspapers that are in the public domain.  That means the content is largely pre-1926.  Through a partnership with Newspapers.com, a lot of the papers on Chronicling America are also available through the paid service, which boosts Newspapers.com's catalog but also allows for a much smoother user interface than what the LOC currently offers.  This program is mostly executed by various state archives and university libraries, where they can receive government grants to digitize their newspaper collections and provide them to the Library of Congress to host on the Chronicling America site.

The Google Newspaper Archive (news.google.com/newspapers) is one of a long line of semi-abandoned Google experiments.  Back when they were binge-scanning every book they could get their hands on, they also began digitizing newspapers, new and old.  They also briefly bought out a website called PaperofRecord.com that happened to have the largest collection of Mexican newspapers on the web.  Sadly, since Google was not able to work out an agreement with the Hemeroteca Nacional Digital de Mexico that had provided the Mexican papers, all of that content was removed from Google's site and, even once PaperofRecord.com was sold to another party, the Mexican papers were never restored and now remain mostly inaccessible outside of Mexico.

Mexican papers aside, the Google Newspaper Archive is still online and while the search facility is mostly useless the papers are still there and can be browsed directly.  The best search interface for this archive is through their Google Books interface, where you can restrict your searches to certain types of media, newspapers being an option.  While many titles have now been removed, this collection still includes many titles that are available nowhere else, as yet.  So it still a valuable, though tedious, resource for historical newspaper research.

Back to Mexico, there are a few newspapers that are free to search and read on the site for the Hemeroteca Nacional Digital de Mexico (http://www.hndm.unam.mx/), namely El Informador, the main newspaper of Guadalajara.

Elephind.com is a sort of meta search engine that attempts to provide a single search interface for several of the various independent newspaper digitization sites across the world.

Newspapers (subscription)

Newspapers.com is a now subsidiary of Ancestry.com and is available through paid subscription.  They probably have the largest catalog with the best user interface of the available commercial options, and are constantly adding new titles and pages to their offerings.

GenealogyBank.com is a subsidiary of Newsbank.com, and as the title implies, is geared more directly toward genealogical research, but still have an impressive catalog of newspapers in their archive.  For the most part, there is not a lot of overlap with the titles offered at Newspapers.com, so a subscription to both, for those who could afford it, would be very useful.  Their monthly blog usually lists the latest additions to their records: https://blog.genealogybank.com/

NewspaperArchive.com has probably the smallest collection of the paid sites, and due to poor management, squandered their early lead in the field.  They also racked up a lot of bad user sentiment with questionable billing practices and poor site performance.  While those days are largely past, the company as it stands now is having to recover a lot of lost ground.  Site performance is much improved. They are picking up steam as far as adding new content, see here for recent additions: https://newspaperarchive.com/search/publication/.  For what they offer, they are also the most expensive of the three sites, but still, the do offer papers not covered by either Newspapers.com or GenealogyBank.com


Genealogy Resources

While genealogy sites might not immediately seem relevant to wrestling research, remember that family history research is largely just searching for information on specific people.  And wrestlers are certainly specific people!  Sites along these lines are perfect for fleshing out personal details about a wrestler's whereabouts at various points in their lives, before, during and after their wrestling careers.  Sometimes tracking them down requires working from a different angle, such as finding a sibling or child and working back toward your main subject.  Often you can reconstruct a part of their family tree and find living family members to talk to, who sometimes are only too happy to talk about their long departed loved ones.

Free sites:
FamilySearch.org is the primary genealogy website maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The Mormons' enthusiasm for family history is a benefit for everyone due to the sheer volume of information they are constantly making available.  The site contains census records (see where the wrestlers were born, where they lived, family members, etc.), immigration records (mostly ships passenger lists), city directories (sort of the precursor to phone books), vital records (birth, marriage, divorce and death records) and a variety of other records both civilian and military.

FindAGrave.com is another good resource, not just to locate the final resting place of a wrestler, but also possibly connections to family.  Especially in the case of wrestlers long deceased, often it is through family that we might be able to find more about a wrestler.  I have set up a virtual cemetery there of people involved in the wrestling business here:  

https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/741141

Currently, I have found the final resting places for over 1100 wrestlers, promoters, managers, announcers and referees.

Facebook.com.  Seriously!  If you have managed to find any surviving relatives through any of the resources listed above (in obituaries or as virtual flowers left on Find A Grave), if you want to get in touch, search for them on Facebook.  I have found more than a few family members and descendants of wrestlers on Facebook.  The most difficult part is then getting them to respond, and hopefully being interested enough to help.

The National Archives of Australia (https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au) has been a surprisingly good resource for travel records.  The have an extensive and growing database of passenger records, both for ships and early air travel, that I have used to place several wrestlers, and a couple with their real names.  That's where I found Ricky Waldo's real name, browsing through their passenger arrival records for wrestlers.

Subscription sites:

Fold3.com is primarily an archive of military records, though they do also have some census records, immigration records and city directories.  I have had a lot of success finding wrestlers from the 1910s-1950s in the World War I and World War II draft registrations.  Those draft records typically include a full name, date and place of birth, and current residence.  The WWII records also include employment information, height, weight, hair color, skin color, other distinguishing features (cauliflower ears!) and a copy of the wrestlers' signature.

Ancestry.com, naturally, is a great resource, but can be a bit pricy.  Though, much like the newspaper sites, when you are doing a lot of serious research, what you save in travel expenses more than makes up for the yearly fees involved, and there are bundles that include Fold3 and Newspapers.com that can make it more of a bargain.

e-Yearbook.com is a bit tangential, but when researching the early days of someone's life, being able to find them in a high school or college yearbook is a great way to verify the name you are hunting down is the actual person once you see a photo and see the various activities they were involved with in school.

Great Wrestling Venues—Alabama 1931-1935

  After much procrastination and silence, book 1 is in the bag!  I am please to present my first published work, The Great Pro Wrestling Venues, Volume 3 - Alabama: 1931-1935.  On sale now at CrowbarPress.com!

   First to dispel any confusion, the "Volume 3" is the result of a re-branding of a series of results-oriented books Crowbar Press is doing. The initial intent was to do a series of similar books called "Wrestling's Greatest Cities", but the first book was only for Madison Square Garden (Vol 1), the second book was for Nashville (Vol 2) and the third book (this one) was going to be for the whole state of Alabama. When I pointed out that the "cities" series was comprised of 1 city, 1 venue and 1 state, the concept was re-thought and the venues title was born.  So if the MSG and Nashville books see a second printing, they may be re-titled to fit the series.

    Anyway, to quote the listing at CrowbarPress.com:

This comprehensive work covers the matches in the ring and the events that took place behind the scenes in Alabama from 1931 through 1935.  Travel down Alabama highways and enjoy the memories of more than 2,000 wrestling shows, 4,000 matches, and more than 550 illustrations and images — program covers, newspaper headlines and articles, advertisements, and memorabilia — all of which accompany the stories and information to enhance the sensation of traveling back in time.  This is yet another incredible work from Crowbar Press that you will refer to time and time again. 

     The book actually starts as far back as 1905, as I included a brief account of the state of wrestling in Alabama prior to 1931, as a preface to what was to come later.  But the main focus was in the 1931-1935 period.  Now on to 1936-1940!

Building a Book on Alabama Pro Wrestling History (Part 5)

     In what may be the final trip to the Alabama State Archives in Montgomery, I managed to finish off scanning what I needed from the Birmingham News for 1939-40.  I also managed to fill in a few gaps or oversights in my Montgomery coverage as well as picking up the 3-4 months that Chris Jordan ran wrestling in Selma in 1932 from the Selma Times-Journal, which had some good photos.  As far as I know, that is the last town that ran wrestling in the 1930s.  Or at the very least, that is the last town for which I found a reference where I could find any actual evidence.  The two towns that are still mysteries are Courtland (a small town along US 72 between Muscle Shoals and Decatur) and Cullman (the largest town on I-65 between Decatur and Birmingham). 

     All I've found for Courtland was a mention in either the Decatur Daily or the Florence Times about a show being scheduled there at their new arena.  But when I checked the actual local weekly paper, the Moulton Advertiser, I could find nothing about it in the issues before or after the event was supposed to have taken place.  As far as I could tell, Courtland didn't have its own paper, and Moulton was the next nearest town that did.

    Cullman, which was also only covered by two weekly papers, the Cullman Democrat and the Cullman Tribune.  The Cullman Democrat (which is partially covered at Newspapers.com) was very spotty with its coverage of wrestling.  There are a handful of references to wrestling shows, a couple of which give the impression either that wrestling is about to start, or that wrestling has already been a weekly thing.  But no more than a couple of references can be found in the entire year.  I suppose for the sake of completion, I should check out the Tribune.

    I also picked up everything from 1931-1938 from the Jasper Advertiser, which seemed to be the "major" paper covering Jasper, Alabama in the 1930s.  For a out of the way place like Walker County, Alabama, I was surprised to find they were covered by three different newspapers; the Mountain Eagle, the Jasper Advertiser and the Carbon Hill News.  What I was happy to find was that the Jasper Advertiser, at least early on, included some great photos of several of the wrestlers (and the brand new Jasper City Auditorium), and as I was photographing from the hard-copies (instead of b&w or gray-scale microfilm), they should hopefully turn out good when printed.

    So If I don't find anything major in the Cullman Tribune, I think I'm done here, and can spend the next month hammering out the connective tissue for this beast and working all of the results into a shape more closely resembling what Scott Teal used in his Madison Square Garden and Nashville books.  Oh, and it looks like this will probably be a two-parter.  It was getting fairly hefty with nothing but cards and results and a few bits of writing (nearly 250 pages), so I've been convinced it would be best to break that in two to allow a lot more room to breathe.  That gives me a good 100 pages per volume to work in photos, ads, articles and history.

Building a Book on Alabama Pro Wrestling History (Part 4)

    Back in Montgomery, at the Archives, trying to knock out the last years of Birmingham I need to get rolling on the writing part of this project.  I will be mighty glad to get to that.  Today, I knocked out the rest of what I was missing from 1931, and picked up January through August of 1936, which leaves me a day and a half to try to get as much of the remaining 52 months as I can.  I don't think I'll quite make it, but having wrapped up 1931, at least I can get started writing as I now have the beginning of the wrestling boom in Alabama.

    It would appear that what Chris Jordan ultimately built into a multi-state territory by 1940 began with a man by the name of Curtis Sanford, who began promoting boxing for the American Legion in Birmingham in February of 1931.  This was specifically the Gorgas Post No. 115, that got the ball rolling.  The first wrestling card was held on April 6th, and deadlined by Ernie Dusek vs. John Katan with an undercard of Homer Smiles vs Billy Edwards and three boxing matches.  Smiles would go on to be a very popular football coach (there is a stadium named after him in Leeds), and Billy Edwards would soon be better known as Bad Bill Edwards, one of the more prominent heels to work cards mostly around the Birmingham area.

     The State of Alabama had recently reorganized its athletic and boxing commission, and under the new rules, only American Legion posts were to be issued promoting licenses for boxing and wrestling, so that the Legion could use the proceeds from the events to continue their community and charitable work.   By 1930, Birmingham was large enough that it had two Legion Posts, typically referred to as Post No. 1 and the Gorgas Post (No. 115).  Almost instantly, there was contention between the two posts, that would take a couple of years to shake out.  In the years and decades to follow, Post No. 115 would merge into Post No. 1, and the name of General Gorgas would be retained, and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) organization would be given equal footing with the American Legion in the state, as far as promoting sporting events.

  By April 16th, Sanford stepped aside when the American Legion (Post No. 1) brought in Sam Siegel, along with his connections to Rudy Dusek, and thus the talent pool of Jack Curley of Jim Londos, Jim McMillen and the Duseks, all the way down to "Rubber Man" Sol Slagel.  Siegel wrote a series of articles for the Birmingham News from mid-April to June, explaining the "new style" of wrestling, introducing many of the wrestlers that would be coming to Alabama, as well as some brief history of the last few years and how he came to be in Birmingham.

  Most of the towns that began running wrestling over the following years seem to have begun as boxing towns.  In the first few years, mixed boxing and wrestling cards were common, and in a couple towns, like Sheffield and Huntsville, boxing was often the more popular, resulting in extended periods with no wrestling.  Battling Bozo was probably the most popular draw in boxing in the state in the early 1930s, both for his comedic boxing stylings, as well as his frequent appearances as a special guest referee.

   The American Legion post in Tarrant City began holding boxing cards in May, and by August, had appointed Kid Lott as their new boxing and wrestling promoter, and held their first wrestling card on August 11th.  The snowball effect kicked in, and shortly thereafter, American Legion posts all over the state wanted in on the action, promoting their own boxing and wrestling events, and thus the Alabama wrestling boom of the 1930s was born.

Building a Book on Alabama Pro Wrestling History (Part 3)

     A few bits of good news came out of the past week.  First and foremost, when my first two reels of the 1934 Birmingham News arrived at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, I was only assessed a fee of $2.  The HMCPL only charges $1 per microfilm reel for processing Inter-Library Loan requests, and apparently they were able to find the microfilm somewhere other than the state archives.  And apparently that other library didn't charge anything for loaning out their films.  YAY!  I also found that the HMCPL allows up to 5 concurrent ILL requests, so I went ahead and requested the next 5 months of 1934.  If all goes well, I hope to be mid way through 1935 by the end of July.

     I made the long trek to Montgomery yesterday to get started on the Montgomery Advertiser.  While I was fortunate to catch them on a weekend they were open (2nd weekend of every month, just like the Archives in Birmingham), they were also holding a genealogy seminar that morning.  On the positive side, it meant for the first 4 hours I was there, things were quiet in the Research Room and there was no waiting for one of the two (TWO! Seriously, just two?  The Tennessee State Archives has about ten!) microfilm scanners, but once the seminar let out, it started to get busy, so I packed it in for the long drive home.
     While there, I managed to knock out 15 months worth of the Advertiser, from November 1931-January 1933.  Another positive discovery was that the Montgomery Advertiser was a much smaller paper than I had anticipated, to the point where they could fit two and sometimes three months on a single reel.  So my original estimate of 120 reels to cover 1931-1940 for Montgomery has been revised down to 55-60 reels.  The combination of fewer reels to borrow, and the dramatically reduced fees greatly reduce my projected expenses for this project, which is a very good thing.

     A couple of quick notes on what I found in the films I got through: Sam Siegel, heavyweight promoter in Birmingham, was announced in November 1931 as the new matchmaker for Montgomery Post No. 2, replacing Roy B. Strickland, who had requested to be relived of the duty due to being too busy with his own business.  Naturally, big things were promised with Siegel coming in, but in the fifteen months I scanned through, he only ran a handful of shows at the end of 1931 into early 1932.  Though I didn't find any big announcement, in June, arrangements had been made for Chris Jordan to begin running weekly shows at the Cramton Bowl, kicking things off in style with a main event between former world heavyweight champ Gus Sonnenberg against Jim Hesslyn (repeatedly misspelled as Kesslyn in the Advertiser) on June 8th.  An estimated 1,000 fans turned out for the show.

     Since I was there, I also asked them to pull their hard copy of the 1938 Huntsville Times to try to fill in more details for a show that was advertised for Wednesday, 20 April 1938.  The microfilm at the HMCPL was missing that issue, and so was GenealogyBank.com.  As it turns out, the Archives were also missing that issue.  Tuesday the 19th jumped straight to Thursday the 21st, with no mention of no paper having been printed for the 20th.  So I have to assume, they just failed to acquire that issue, and that the microfilms were probably taken from the hard copies at the Archives.  As no mention was made of the show in the 21 April issue, and it was the last show announced in 1938, I'm leaning toward it having been cancelled due to poor turnout.  A few days later an announcement was made that wrestling and boxing shows would be suspended "until the present political campaign is finished."  Must have been a long campaign as shows were not resumed until July of 1939.

     As a progress report, last week I had noticed that I'd apparently not abstracted the cards and results from the Tuscaloosa News, even though I had all the clippings collected already, so I knocked that out (thanks to the mid-week holiday), and have updated the grid on the first of these posts.  While 1932 was a very busy year, with a lot of small towns being run, I suspect once Jordan expanded to Dothan, Montgomery and Mobile, that towns like Tarrant City, Bessemer and Homewood were largely abandoned.  There was only so much talent to go around, so it would only have made sense for Jordan to have concentrated his efforts in the larger towns where he could stand to make a lot more money.

Building a Book on Alabama Pro Wrestling History (Part 2)

Source: WBRC.com

     I finished gathering clippings from Gadsden this weekend, so I now have 1933-40 to cover Gadsden, and the shows from neighboring Attalla in 1939-40.  Joe Gunther started running shows in Gadsden again with a special Independence Day show, but either he only ran sporadically after that, or the newspaper just stopped giving the shows regular coverage.  Possibly due to a frequent postponements due to weather, because shows were being run mainly in the Amphitheater, Jordan, and later Gunther, just put Gadsden on a lower priority.  A lot of shows were rained out over 1938-39, even some shows scheduled for the City Auditorium.  Possibly that is why they began running shows in Attalla.

     Unfortunately, I was wrong about the library at Samford.  I paid them a visit a couple of months ago and found that, while their catalog system still lists a lot of the newspapers I need (for Birmingham, Montgomery & Mobile), their actual microfilm holdings had suffered a really bad case of vinegar syndrome, and they lost a large percentage of what I needed.  When speaking with a librarian at the Birmingham Archives, they said hey'd had the same problem a few years ago, but that Birmingham had replaced everything they lost.  Apparently Samford lacked the budget to do the same.

Birmingham Archives

     As a result, I will have to keep making trips to Birmingham, and possibly to Montgomery.  I'm working out the relative costs of utilizing the inter-library loan system to just have the reels I need sent up to Huntsville and/or Decatur.  The issue there is the Alabama Department of Archives & History charges $15 per reel, with a limit of only two reels per loan.  So $30 a pop (plus probably a couple of dollars to the local library) for two reels, which for B'ham and Montgomery means roughly two months of newspaper.  And so far, that process seems to be slow.  I put my application in for the first two months of the 1934 Birmingham News a week ago and haven't heard anything yet.

     So, doing some basic math, I need roughly 10 years of newspapers from three major Alabama cities.  If each reel is only a month, that's something like 360 reels of microfilm.  At $15 a pop, that would run me $5,400, not including any local fees the library will charge for their effort.   Now I can get through anywhere from 8-12 reels of microfilm in a day, if I'm at the library all day.  Maybe more, I've only had one complete day so far.  Each trip to Birmingham costs me around $50, (estimating $30 for gas & $20 for food). And since I've already got 1932-33 covered, that leaves me with another 8 years to cover, which means roughly $400.
   
     I really don't think I can work any faster there because Birmingham uses the the ST ViewScan III, which is decent enough hardware, but the ViewScan software is buggy as hell and crashes constantly.  That issue, combined with the annoying library patron kiosk software intended to keep users locked into a restricted sandbox, for security purposes.  However, none of the librarians seem to know how it works!  If they had the admin password, they could at least launch the Task Manager and kill the ViewScan software so it could be relaunched without having to terminate and re-start my session, over and over.  Every other library I've visited (that has a microfilm scanner) has the e-Image Data ScanPro series of machine, which works so much better, doesn't crash (except maybe once per day), and doesn't have the annoying security software locking down their machines.  On those, I can get a lot more work done, a lot more quickly.

Alabama Department of Archives & History

    For Montgomery, I've got an extra 2 hours, round-trip, so call it $60 per trip to accommodate the extra gas.  Having not used their scanners before, I don' t know what models they have.  I need to email them and ask.  If they have the ViewScans, I'm screwed.  But if, by some miracle, they have the ScanPros (like the Tennessee State Archives have), I can probably get through 12-14 reels in a day.  Also, Montgomery has the entire newspaper archive for the state of Alabama, so I can knock out Montgomery, Mobile and Dothan, all at the same place.  The Dothan Eagle was only a weekly paper, so probably not more than 3-4 reels per year, so upwards of 48 reels (probably less), plus the estimated 120 for Mobile and 120 for Montgomery, and that's 288 reels to get through.  At 14 reels per trip, that's roughly 20 trips, at $60 each for $1,200 expenses.  So actually going there saves me roughly $3,800 over the inter-library loan route, though it does add a lot of wear & tear on my car with all that driving.

    Now I understand, so clearly, why Scott Teal says there's not really any money in publishing books on wrestling history.

Wrestling in Huntsville, Alabama in 1933

     Unlike most of other towns in Alabama, it took promoter Chris Jordan a few tries before profession wrestling took hold in Huntsville.  However, once the fans finally started to support the shows (after abortive attempts in August-September 1932 and again in February 1933), shows ran consistently for about the next four years.

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA 1933 (From the Huntsville Times)

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 01 February 1933
The local "40 and 8" organization announces its intent to begin bi-weekly matches at the Dallas Street National Guard Armory, with Chris Jordan promoting, provided the could deliver the cards as advertised.  A brief attempt at wrestling had failed the previous August & September due partly to frequent card changes as well as poor weather.  The initial card, scheduled for Tuesday, February 2nd, was to include Eddie Pope vs Kid Lott and Dutch Green vs Tarzan the Ape Man (George Romanoff).

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 07 February 1933
Due to bad weather, and a poor expected turnout, the "40 and 8" contacted Chris Jordan to cancel the event.

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 21 February 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) The announced card of Tarzan the Apeman vs Stanley Buresh and Joe Dillman vs Ernest Kelly is cancelled when a crowd of less than 100 people, including free passes, is all that shows up.  This would be the last attempt at wrestling in Huntsville until October.

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 04 October 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Jack Purdin beat Lon Chaney (2-1) via dq ... Gus Pappas beat Otto Matulka (35:50, 2-1) ... Referee: Musso ...Promoter: Fred Demeritte/Chris Jordan ... local wrestler Clifford "Happy Jack" Helton challenges Chaney after the main event ... Matulka substitutes for the advertised Ernest Kelly

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 11 October 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Jack Purdin beat Gus Pappas (18:30, 2-0) ... Eddie Baker beat Mike London (27:30, 2-1) ... Promoter Fred Demeritte/Chris Jordan ... Helton again makes his presence known; the paper says he trained under Ralph Smith and has been working Smith's circuit in West Tennessee

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 18 October 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Jack Purdin beat "Rough House" Sam Nelson (2-1) via dq ... Francis Stull beat Stanley Hackney (28:00, 2-1) ... Referee: Bill Rush ... Promoter: Fred Demeritte ... Stull substituted for the announced Bobby Burns

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 25 October 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Tuffy Cleet beat Jack Purdin (32:002-1 ) ... Freddie Knichel beat Francis Stull (25:00, 2-1) via countout when Stull missed a flying tackle and knocked himself out on the floor ... Promoter: Fred Demeritte

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 01 November 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Rough House Nelson beat Tuffy Cleet () via countout ... Rex Mobley beat Jack Spurgin (21:00, 2-1) via dq ... Referee: Tuffy Cleet (opener), Jack Spurgin (main event) ... Spurgin and Nelson brawled to end the show as Cleet was restrained by the police ... estimated attendance was close to 500

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 08 November 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... World Welterweight Champion Jack Reynolds beat Francis Stull (13:00, 2-0) ... Rough House Nelson beat Jack Spurgin (45:00, 2-1) ... Promoter: Fred Demeritte

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 15 November 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... World Light Heavyweight Champion Hugh Nichols beat Rough House Nelson (18:00, 2-0) ... Tuffy Cleet beat Walter Logan (2-1) ... Promoter: Chris Jordan

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 22 November 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Red Lyons beat George LaMarr (43:00, 1-1) LaMarr was unable to return for the third fall... Tuffy Cleet drew Dude Chick (60:00, 1-1) ... Referee: Tuck

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 29 November 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Dude Chick beat George Sauer (1-1) Sauer was unable to return for the third fall ... Joe Shimkus beat Red Lyons (30:00, 2-1) ... Referee: Coy Martin

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 06 December 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Joe Shimkus beat Dude Chick (34:00, 2-1) ... Basanta Singh beat Francis Stull (21:00, 2-1) ... Shinkus substituted for the advertised Tuffy Cleet

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 13 December 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Joe Shimkus beat Jack Newell ... Al Baffert beat Pat Murphy (31:00, 1-0) ... Promoter: Fred Demeritte ... Murphy substituted for the advertised Tony Catalina

Huntsville, AL:  Wednesday, 20 December 1933
(National Guard Armory, Dallas Street) ... Joe Dillman beat Walter Logan (24:00, 2-0) ... Suleyman Bey beat Jack Spurgin (29:00, 2-1) ... Promoter: Fred Demeritte

Wrestling in Gadsden, Alabama in 1933

GADSDEN, ALABAMA 1933 (From the Gadsden Times)

     With the exception of the local Gadsden-area amateurs often used for preliminary matches, wrestlers for promoter Noel Ray's shows were provided by Chris Jordan of Birmingham, Alabama, who promoted all over the Southeast.   Ray was an accomplished local amateur wrestler in his own right and would "go pro" in May of 1933 and have a handful of opening matches through out the summer.

Gadsden, AL:  Friday, 24 March 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Jim Hesslyn beat Ernest Kelly (44:35, 2-1) ... Georgin Harben beat Eddie Elzea (39:52, 2-0) ... Referee: Sammy Miller ... Promoter: Noel W. Ray

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 31 March 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Lon Chaney beat Jim Mellon  (37:12, 2-0) ... "Rough House" Jack Hagen beat Jack Sherry (30:56, 2-1) ... Bob Burns beat Max Weiner (9:20)  ... Referee: Ernest Kelly ... Promoter: Noel W. Ray ... Jack Mellon (or Mellen) was listed as 170 lbs, wrestling fireman from Battle Creek, Michigan ...  Bob Burns was referred to as a former University of Alabama wrestler

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 07 April 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Eddie Pope beat Roy Allen (8:00) in one fall, Allen was unable to continue after suffering a strained back from Pope's "crab hold" ... Eddie Pope beat Sammy Miller (24:52, 2-0) ... Cowboy Roland beat Jack/Jacques Moreau (24:41, 2-1) ... Pope wrestled twice to make up for the no-show by Scotty McNaught, who had been heavily advertised ... Promoter: Noel W. Ray

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 14 April 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Ernest Kelly beat Al Stecher (33:25) via dq ... Jim Hesslyn drew Joe Dillman (60:00) with no falls ... David Lee Reid beat Bill Stewart (13:10) ... Referee: George Harben ... Promoter: Noel W. Ray ...  Reid and Stewart were listed as Gadsden locals

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 21 April 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Ernest Kelly beat Jim Hesslyn (34:20, 2-0) ... Eddie Pope beat Freddie Lassiter (27:12, 2-0) ... Referee: "Rough House" Hagen ...  Promoter: Noel W. Ray

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 28 April 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Al Stecher beat Eddie Pope (2-1) ... Ed "Bull" White beat Charlie Cure (17:20, 2-1) ... Referee Roy Allen ... Ed White listed as former Army football player and pro football All-American tackle

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 05 May 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Joe Dillman beat Francis (Francois) Journee (26:42, 2-1) ... Ernest Kelly beat Clint McLeod (2-1) ... Lopez Brazile beat Lawrence Vinson (3:10) ... Promoter: Noel Ray ... Vinson listed as local high school football star ... Brazile's name is also spelled Brazell and Brazill in subsequent mentions in the newspaper

Apparently at this point the weather had warmed up enough that the American Legion built an outdoor arena at their golf course here promoter Noel Ray moved his shows.

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 12 May 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... First show at the newly contructed outdoor arena at the American Legion golf course on First Street... Al Stecher beat Pat Corrigan (26:23, 2-1) ... Eddie Pope beat Pete Demetroff (2-1) ... Noel "Kid" Ray beat Dr. Roller (10:44, 2-1)
... the Times claims Corrigan was on the recent Savoldi-Londos card in Chicago (7 April @ Chicago Stadium), but the pre-show card and show results listed in the Chicago Tribune do not support that claim ... This was Noel Ray's first professional wrestling match

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 19 May 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Stanley Buresh beat Kid Lott (25:17, 2-1) ... Tarzan, the Ape Man (George Romanoff) beat "Rough House" Jack Hagen (60:00, 1-0) ... Lopez Brazile beat Jimmy Price (1:55)

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 26 May 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Al Stecher beat George Romanoff (17:12, 2-0) .. Kid Lott beat Jack Hagen (9:10, 2-0) .. Clarence Bynum drew Kit Pritchett (15:00) ..  Bynum is listed as from Emma Sansom High School

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 02 June 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Al Stecher beat Jack Freeman (32:00, 2-1) .. Stanley Buresh beat Hans Wagner (34:22, 2-1) .. Noel Ray beat Red Sanger (10:20)

Gadsden, AL: Saturday, 10 June 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Ernest Kelly vs Stanley Buresh (2/3 Falls, 2 hr time limit) ... Al Stecher vs Ripper Reeves (2/3 falls, 60 min time limit) ... Promoter: Noel Ray ... show was delayed a day due to rain, no results were published

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 16 June 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Hans Wagner beat Stanley West (29:15, 2-1) .. Freddie Knichel beat Bulldog Mallory (23:49, 2-0) ... Promoter: Noel Ray

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 23 June 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Joe Dillman beat Walter Roxy (9:40, 2-0) ... Bobby Jackson beat Ripper Reeves (26:12, 2-1) ... Roxy is listed as a University of Indiana wrestling star whose only collegiate loss came in the 1930 Big Ten tournament ... Reeves is listed as a former University of Florida All-Southern guard in football.

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 30 June 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Joe Dillman beat Bobby Burns (21:55, 2-0) ... Bobby Jackson beat Freddie Knichel (40:15, 2-1) ... Gadsden Times says Burns' real name is 'Tony Rico', a member of the 1928 U.S. Olympic wrestling team.

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 07 July 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Ernest Kelly beat Stanley Buresh (2-1) .. Bobby Jackson beat Walter Roxy (28:30, 2-1) ... David Lee Reid beat Bill Stewart via countout ... Buresh's loss reportedly ended a 180 match winning streak

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 14 July 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Ernest Kelly vs Stanley West ... Joe Gunther vs Vic Webber ... Noel Ray vs Bulldog Mallory

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 21 July 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... "Queen's Night" ... Tuffy Cleet beat Ernest Kelly (48:30, 2-1) ... Henry Kolln beat Farmer Vance (21:34, 2-1) ... Noel Ray beat Bulldog Mallory (20:00) via dq

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 28 July 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Tuffy Cleet beat Frank Buresh (20:15) via countout ... Vic Webber beat Mike Longon (24:49, 2-1) ... Referee: Ripper Reeves

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 04 August 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Vic Webber beat Dale Haddock (28:50, 2-1) ... Gus Pappas beat Pete Ramos (25:30, 2-1) ... Kid Ray drew Jimmy Shaber (15:00) ...  Shaber is listed as "welterweight champion of Albania"

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 11 August 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Stanley Buresh beat "Pop" Papas (27:40, 2-0) ... Vic Webber beat John Felix (36:19, 2-1) via dq ... Papas substituted for Cleet who was not cleared to wrestle by the on-site doctor due to a carbuncle

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 18 August 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Jim Hesslyn beat Mickey McGuire (2-1) ... Henry Kolln beat Pete Demetroff (15:25, 2-1) ... Referee: Pappas

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 25 August 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Jim Hesslyn beat Frank Buresh (22:42, 2-1) ... John Felix beat Dale Haddock (35:10, 2-1)

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 01 September 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Jim Hesslyn beat Ernest Kelly (45:42, 2-1) via dq ... Vic Webber beat Eddie Baker (28:22, 2-1)

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 08 September 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Joe Dillman beat Tom Galbos (39:50, 2-1) ... John Felix beat Pete Demetroff (20:05, 2-1)

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 15 September 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Mickey McGuire beat Jack Purdin (35:20, 2-1) ... Vic Webber beat Al Thompson (30:10, 2-0) ... Referee: Farmer Vance ... Promoter: Kid Ray ... Purdin was a substitution for Tuffy Cleet who had been suspended by the state athletic commission.  This may refer to an issue mentioned in the August 5th commission meeting minutes concerning Tuffy Cleet striking a spectator during a show in Sheffield, resulting in a $10 fine.

Google's newspaper archive is missing 8 June - 26 September 1933 of the Florence Times, so I'll have to go to Florence to fill in the missing dates from the microfilm at the library.

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 22 September 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Tuffy Cleet vs Roughhouse Sam Nelson ... John Felix vs Eddie Baker

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 29 September 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Tuffy Cleet vs Ace Judkins ... Freddie Knichel vs Eddie Baker

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 06 October 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Frank Buresh beat Otto Matulka (55:20, 2-1) ... Mike London beat Gorilla Tucker (2-0)

Gadsden, AL: Wednesday, 11 October 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... World Light Heavyweight Champion Hugh Nichols beat Frank Buresh (33:50, 2-1) ... Jack Purdin beat Jack Spurgin (11:00, 2-0) ... Spurgin was substituted for the advertised Otto Matulka

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 20 October 1933
(American Legion Outdoor Arena) ... Frank Buresh vs Bill Fulton ... Jack Purdin vs John McKee

     At this point, promoter Noel Ray moved the shows into the "new downtown arena" the American Legion had set up.  The hype for the shows in the newspaper continued, but for some reason, they stopped posting the results.

Gadsden, AL: Monday, 23 October 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Nick Bozinis vs Lon Chaney ... Harry Davison vs Harry "Speedy" Schaeffer

Gadsden, AL: Friday, 30 October 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Joe Dillman vs Harry Davison ... Freddie Knichel vs Tommy Tassos ... Billy Love vs Ray Myers ... Promoter: Noel Ray

Gadsden, AL: Monday, 06 November 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... George "Wildcat" Pete vs Dick Sampson ... Tommy Tassos vs Eddie Baker

Gadsden, AL: Monday, 13 November 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... George "Wildcat" Pete vs Ray "Tuffy" Meyers (2/3 Falls, 2h time limit) ... Tommy Tassos vs Omar Hanna (2/3 Falls, 60 min time limit) ... Referee Mal "Big Boy" Taylor

Gadsden, AL: Monday, 20 November 1933
(American Legion Arena) ... Freddie Knichel vs Eddie Baker ... Bulldog Mallory vs Jack Carson ... Promoter: Noel Ray


Thanks to the Gadsden Public Library for the use of their ScanPro

Archives of the Alabama Boxing & Wrestling Commission (1939-1980)

     I recently got it in my head to start working with a couple of the online pro wrestling database sites to help populate their event databases with old shows from Alabama.  I'd noticed that a lot of attention had already been given to the hot beds of wrestling (Georgia, Texas, Chicago, St. Louis, Florida, New York, etc.), but no one seemed to be working on Alabama.  Or at least not Northern Alabama, from Birmingham up. In the course of researching my family history, I'd become very familiar with researching newspaper archives and noticed that Google's Newspaper Archives included several papers from smaller towns in Alabama where wrestling was a weekly event.

     The more I read these old articles and event results, the more I realized I didn't know who most of these people were, either the promoters or the wrestlers.  So after piling about three years worth of results in to WrestlingData.com for Florence, Alabama in the 1930s-1950s, I thought I would see what might be available at the Alabama Department of History and Archives in Montgomery.

     This past Friday, I spent the whole day at the Alabama Department of Archives & History photographing records from the old Alabama Boxing & Wrestling Commission (and the prior Alabama Athletic Commission) that existed from about 1927-1980.  It was a fascinating experience for anyone interested in the bureacratic side of the wrestling business.  I'm just going to ignore the boxing part of that from here on out so I don't have to qualify anything as I go.

      The Commission was established primarily as a body to regulate (read: tax) boxing and wrestling events in the state.  Under that guise they issued licenses for promoters, match makers, time keepers, ticket takers, managers, wrestlers, referees and inspectors.  The inspectors were basically part-time employees of the commission whose job was to attend the shows, verify the wrestlers and promoters were licensed, assess the gate receipts and report everything back to the commission.  Inspectors were also used to investigate claims of outlaw shows running without a license and, if need be, bring in local law enforcement to shut down the shows and report back to the commission.   The representatives of the Commission even had badges!

     The commission held periodic meetings to discuss various topics like license applications from promoters and match makers, to try and mediate issues between promoters, receive reports from inspectors, to discuss changes in their various fees and just to update everyone on the goings-on in the state since the previous meeting.  The minutes are all bound in three enormous binders.  The binders are the old style that hold 11" x 14" papers and the whole thing weighs like 15 lbs.  As this was one of the last things I photographed, I only had time to get the oldest volume.  I didn't get every page, as some I considered very mundane or only addressed boxing.  Here are the pages of Commission minutes:

https://goo.gl/photos/iCVatFEgCr4gKMQHA

     When it came down to actual records regarding promoters, wrestlers and events, the archive contained mostly records from the 1970s.  Given the 50 year history of the commission, that was somewhat disappointing and I am curious as to what became of all the rest of the records.  Also, the records weren't all that well organized.  Despite how the various boxes of paper might be described in the Archive's catalog, basically every box was an assortment of all of the below records.  The records in question were generally of these categories:

     License applications for promoters, managers, match makers, time keepers, referees and wrestlers; anyone doing any of these tasks was required by law to pay a licence fee to the Commission each year.  The fees varied, and lists were maintained of who was currently licensed to do what, and when their licenses were up for expiration.  This was both a very fascinating and very frustrating set of records due both to the relative sparsity (again, mostly just records for the 1970s), but also because there was apparently no requirement that the wrestlers actually use real names.  Seriously, there is a registration for "Yankee #2" and on the signature line someone signed "Yankee #2".

     The staff at the Archives actually had to review all of the documents in this collection to redact any Social Security Numbers that were included on the forms.  They spent probably two hours scouring through all the forms, covering the SSNs with little Post It notes and the photocopying to the pages so they could provide me with the "sanitized" copies.  I felt bad for the amount of time they spent on that as these records didn't provide anywhere near the information I was hoping.  But they said they would have had to do it anyway whenever someone requested them, so they didn't mind.

https://goo.gl/photos/vxsPfyDAKttoSSHi8

     Event permits;  these listed the date, location and participants.  Sometimes these permits were accompanied by wrestling license applications for any as-yet-unlicensed wrestlers.  Promoters were supposed to supply lists of towns and events they were going to run 7 days in advance.  There are more than a few scolding letters from the Commission to promoters who "forgot" to submit their permits and notices of events.

https://goo.gl/photos/TeHhMzJWeFMbjFr18

     Event reports; I think these were submitted by the inspectors and listed the location, the promoter, the actual wrestlers in the show, the gate receipts and whatever fees were to be assessed.

https://goo.gl/photos/Ahs9PTTt9N3GFmMm6

     Physicians Exams; I didn't request the actual box of these, so the few I have are those that were mixed into the event reports.  Typically the exams just took place at an event.  Exams were required within 90 days of a entering the ring, and were required for any wrestler applying for a license.  Next time I go back, these will be a focus as they seem to give more actual detail than the license applications.

https://goo.gl/photos/sQK9aE4t5X7Fi8vF6

     Wrestling Reports; this was a collection I thought would be very useful, but as it turns out, all it contained were the event dates & locations and the associated gate and fees collected.  Purely financial information that I did not bother to photograph.  For what it's worth, these records correspond with the permit numbers assigned for each show.  So if someone wanted to do some forensic accounting for fun, they could tie all the records together and see how accurate the accounting was.

     Unlicensed show investigations; mixed in with all the various records were the occasional report from a commission inspector who was tasked with investigating a report of illegal shows being held.  This was another area that was rather thin in documentation.

https://goo.gl/photos/ozB64NyrvkjJ1pbd9

     Another area I skipped were all of the bookkeeping records which were mainly things like office equipment and supply inventories and expenses and all of the travel expenses sent in by the inspectors.  Lots of "where's my check?" letters from the inspectors looking for their $5 check.

     Correspondence; there was a ton of correspondance relating to all of the above.  There was an lengthy back and forth between the Commission and various National Guard commanders and promoters regarding the reach of the Commission.  For most of the history of the sport in Alabama, a great majority of wrestling event were sponsored by and held at National Guard Armories, American Legion and VFW halls.  The National Guard held the position that anything occurring under their purview was not subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission.  In some cases, promoters would even argue that any event sponsored by a military or law enforcement organization was excluded from Commission regulations, even of not held on National Guard property.    In a few cases, there were even letters from fans either complaining or praising the quality of the shows they had attended.

https://goo.gl/photos/9VckjmoSZ8kmxxcU7

     Also in the archive were a variety of newsletters and materials from the National Wrestling Association of America, which was an organization comprised of the various state commissions.  This organization was in no way affiliated with the old National Wrestling Association wrestling cartel from the 1930s-40s.  This Association seemed to exist for the purpose of providing an avenue of communication between the various state commissions to keep track of which individuals were licensed, suspended or outright banned from competing or holding events in the various states.  They also existed to hold annual conventions in exotic locations (Panama, Venezuela, Hawaii, Mexico, etc) so the state commissioners could charge their respective states for expensive vacations in the sun during the winter months.  Below are the images from the Association.

https://goo.gl/photos/eSWaHR9kfKNZGmru5

     I intend to go back sometime before the end of the year to get the rest of what I missed, and maybe by then I'll have gone through all of this and worked up some new avenues to pursue.  The staff of the Alabama Department of Archives and History were real troopers and were always happy to help.  I really appreciated their professionalism.  I'm already planning a trip to Nashville to see what the Tennessee Athletic Commission has on wrestling.

Until next time...