Manassa Remembers Its Mauler’s Day

In the alfalfa-and-potatoes country of southern Colorado, the folks in Manassa--pop. 1,000--threw a big birthday Saturday.

It was for a guy most of them never met. Jack Dempsey, who died in 1983, was born here a century ago, in a two-bedroom log house that today is the Jack Dempsey Museum, in Jack Dempsey Park. The house is now open six days a week, spring through summer.

On the wall of a nearby gas station, a replica of George Bellows’ boxing masterpiece, “Dempsey and Firpo,” depicts Dempsey being knocked out of the ring in the famed 1923 fight.

Dempsey, one of 11 children, lived in Manassa until he was 10. When his father, Hyrum, learned he could make $2 a day shoveling ore in the gold fields, he packed up his family and left.

Dempsey last visited Manassa in 1966, when his boyhood home was moved to the park and dedicated as his museum.

Saturday’s activities included an amateur boxing show, the cutting of a giant cake, a street dance and a theater presentation.