A Knockout in Tacoma Draws a Seattle Crowd
The Puget Sound Athletic Club opened at the old National Theater with a seven-round stoppage, and spectators crossed from Seattle for the card.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
TACOMA, March 9.—[Special.]—The Puget Sound Athletic Club's opening tonight was the most enthusiastic professional prize-ring event ever held here.
The club's quarters at the old National Theater were crowded, many coming from Seattle. In the finish fight between Tom Thompson, a Black boxer from Tacoma, and Patsey Corrigan of Australia, Corrigan was knocked out in the seventh round, Thompson doing him up early in the fight with vicious pivot blows. Both men were knocked down half a dozen times.
“The Puget Sound Athletic Club's opening tonight was the most enthusiastic professional prize-ring event ever held here.”
A century before Seattle and Tacoma argued over arena financing, a crowd from Seattle crossed to Tacoma to watch a fight in a converted theater. The era's papers labeled Thompson by race even as he won the main event—a reminder that Black athletes were central to local entertainment while barred from much of public life. Today combat sports still draw regional crowds and raise the same questions about regulation, safety and where the money goes.
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