Famous Firsts Established at Carson City's Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight

Nevada has had a long relationship with legal prizefighting, which can be traced to the heavyweight bout between two men, James “Gentleman Jim” Corbett and Robert “Ruby Robert” Fitzsimmons in Carson City in 1897.

That first legal bout was the result of a number of serendipitous factors that all came together to make it happen. When talk of a prizefight began to pick up momentum in 1895-96, the biggest problem was that boxing was illegal in the U.S.

At the same time, the state of Nevada was experiencing a crushing economic depression. The mining and ranching industries were collapsing and the state needed a new source of potential revenue.

Against that backdrop, Nevada approved legal “glove contests” in January 1897 and almost immediately promotor Dan Stuart, who had pushed for passage of the law, announced plans for a heavyweight bout in Carson City on March 17, 1897—St. Patrick’s Day.

The fight represented a number of “firsts.” It was Nevada’s first legal prizefight. It was also the first prizefight ever recorded on film for later viewing in movie theaters. It was also the first prizefight using the then-new Queensberry rules requiring boxers to wear five-ounce padded gloves and for rounds to be held to three minutes, separated by a minute of rest.

Once he had the go-ahead for his bout, Stuart erected a 17,000-seat wooden amphitheater on the corner of Musser and Pratt streets in Carson City. At the time, the city had a population of less than 3,000.

While Nevada had decided to legalize prizefighting, the sport was still vilified throughout most of the country. Newspapers began referring to the action as “Nevada’s Disgrace” and religious leaders condemned the state for its loose morals, which also included toleration of casino-style gambling and brothels.

As for the fighters, Corbett set up a training camp at Shaw’s Springs (now known as the Carson Hot Springs, while Fitzsimmons trained at a place called Cook’s Ranch, located about three miles from town.

Stuart hoped that the popular Corbett, born in San Francisco, would draw a good number of his Bay Area supporters to the fight. Fitzsimmons, who hailed from New Zealand, was less well-known but had a far more extensive fight record. Goosing expectations was the fact that Corbett and Fitzsimmons genuinely did not like each other.

On the day of the fight, it became clear that the arena was far bigger than the paid crowd of some four to six thousand who paid to watch the bout.

Despite its less-than-anticipated size, the crowd was enthusiastic, according to newspaper accounts of the fight, with most supporting Corbett, the former title-holder.

The reports indicate that Corbett appeared to be the victor in the early rounds, using his technical skills to mark Fitzsimmons face with several cuts. In the sixth round, Corbett landed an uppercut to Fitzsimmons’ jaw followed by right hand to his nose, which caused him to stagger.

Fitzsimmons, however, managed to remain standing through the rest of the round and a tiring Corbett failed to follow up in the next round.

The two traded blows during the next seven rounds, with the fatigued Corbett having little power behind his punches, and Fitzsimmons waiting for the right opportunity to strike. It came in the 14^th round, when Corbett raised his gloves to protect his face, after being hit on the neck, and Fitzsimmons followed with a strong punch to Corbett’s body, just under his heart.

Known as the “solar plexus punch,” the blow caused Corbett to crumple into the ropes and let out a loud moan. Fitzsimmons landed a second punch to Corbett’s stomach and the former champ fell to his knees.

According to historian Richard O. Davies, in his excellent book, “The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip,” Corbett was so immobilized, he could barely breathe, that he couldn’t rise to his feet and the referee counted him out.

While Corbett’s supporters were disappointed about the outcome, the event, despite the smaller crowd, signaled that legal boxing had a future in the Silver State.

Reno's Overlooked Hillside Cemetery

Tucked into a residential neighborhood of apartment complexes and fraternity houses near the University of Nevada, Reno campus is a patch of land that looks very much out of place.

The roughly five-acre site, which overlooks downtown Reno, is known as the Hillside Cemetery and it is Reno’s oldest final resting grounds, having been first used in the late 1860s (and formally established as a private cemetery in 1875).

According to news accounts, the first person to be buried on the site was Menerva Morton, who died in 1868.

Among the others interred at Hillside include a number of pioneer Reno figures including George Peckham (Peckham Lane is named after him) and George Williams Cassidy, a former journalist and U.S. Congressman from Nevada (1881-1885).

From 1879 to about 1959, Hillside remained a more-or-less active concern that was originally owned by the Wiltshire Sanders and later by his heirs. Apparently, lots in the cemetery were sold to the individual families while ownership of the overall site remained with Sanders.

Records indicate there were a total of 190 lots, which could host as many as 18 individuals on each lot. More than 1,400 people are believed to have been buried in the cemetery.

In about 1905, Wiltshire Sanders turned over ownership of the cemetery to his wife, Margaret Sanders, who, according to court records, continued to sell lot deeds until 1920, when the city passed an ordinance prohibiting such sales. After that date, only members of the families already owning lots could continue to inter their deceased at the cemetery.

In the 1930s, the Sanders family moved away from Reno and the cemetery was abandoned (except for any maintenance efforts performed by the families of those buried there).

By the 1960s, the cemetery was officially an eyesore, used as a dumping ground for trash and old automobiles. Grave markers were broken or stolen and part of the site was used a parking lot by fraternity members living nearby.

In the 1970s, the property began to attract attention from local developers, who purchased the Sanders’ family interests, who wanted to relocate the bodies in order to build apartments, fraternities, or dormitories on the site.

In 1978, the property was donated to UNR, which sought to get the site approved for student housing but abandoned the effort due to public outcry.

In 1985, the university sold the site to Sierra Memorial Services, which, also wanted to use the land for other purposes. In 2001, it persuaded the Nevada Legislature to approve legislation allowing it to relocate the bodies since the cemetery had no financial mechanism for being a viable enterprise.

Since then, Hillside Cemetery has been in a kind of limbo with preservation advocates and descendants of those buried there successfully beating back efforts to disinter the bodies so the site can be repurposed for other uses.

In 2016, the Hillside Cemetery Preservation Foundation was created to restore, preserve and protect the site. The group has a website explaining its goals (http://hcpfoundation,squarespace.com).

Today, visitors can still wander around the fenced cemetery site, which is open (for now) only to family members due to past vandalism problems.

Despite the decades of neglect and vandalism, several impressive headstones and markers remain. They illustrate the significance of the cemetery to Reno’s history, reminders that this was once the city’s most prominent burial grounds where many of the community’s most important figures were laid to rest.