Friday Night Fights: Newport's Main Street Turns Into a Boxing Ring
A carnival of brawling broke out last Friday, with two railroad camp workers arrested for holding prize fights on the main street and two others charged with assaulting an old man. The jail could have held only a quarter of the crowd.
Things were livelier last Friday night than at any time since the town took on its new lease of life. There were more fights and a smack of general hilarity pervaded the atmosphere. Nearly everybody wanted to fight and a good many were accommodated. If a quarter of the bunch that participated in the pugilistic carnival had been arrested the jail would have accommodated but a small portion of them.
Two young fellows from a town near Newport were arrested by Deputy Ensley on a charge of assaulting an old man named Burke on Friday night last during a carnival of fighting. They were fined and given a jail sentence, but the jail sentence was suspended during their good behavior.
R. Hogan and C. Woode, two young fellows who have been working in one of the railroad camps near town, were arrested on Friday night for holding a series of prize fights on the main street of our beautiful city. They were taken before Justice Warriner on Saturday and plead guilty to the charge. Each of the gentlemen were given $10 and costs and sent to Sandpoint to assist in planting fruit trees at the county farm.
“Things were livelier last Friday night than at any time since the town took on its new lease of life. There were more fights and a smack of general hilarity pervaded the atmosphere.”
Public brawling and prize fights were part of the rough-and-tumble social life of a railroad town, and the light sentences — a fine and some fruit-tree planting — suggest a community that saw youthful violence as a nuisance rather than a threat. Today, Newport's main street is quieter, but the tension between rowdy nightlife and civic order still plays out in every small town.
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