The Retired Wrestler and the Bull
A former champion wrestler faces the fight of his life against an enraged bull on Beacon Hill.
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.
Colonel J. H. McLaughlin, a retired world champion wrestler, had the hardest contest of his life the other day against a big red wild bull. McLaughlin owns a beautiful home on Beacon Hill south of the city. Last Tuesday, while crossing a ten-acre brushy tract near his home, he was charged by a neighbor's bull. Quick as a flash, he 'seized the bull by the horns.' The struggle was catch-as-catch-can, and the wrestler was tossed into brush heaps and battered. With his clothes torn and bleeding from bruises, he managed to 'cross-buttock' the bull, driving one of its horns deep into the earth. He sat on the animal's head until neighbors arrived with clubs to relieve him. He remained in possession of his 'championship belt,' though he was left badly battered by the encounter.
“He sat on the animal's head and rested... when some men who had seen the combat from a neighboring field and had been hastening to the rescue, came up with clubs.”
Stories of legendary local eccentrics often became the folklore of Seattle's early neighborhoods. This event took place on Beacon Hill, a site that has seen vast transformations from rough brush lots to dense residential neighborhoods.
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