A Teetotaler’s Bar and Boxing Mecca

The city of Vernon is best known today for its meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses, but nearly a century ago it was famous for the sort of beef that comes on two feet.

Just after the turn of the century, in fact, the little town vied with Madison Square Garden for the title of “Boxing Capital of the World.”

In his Vernon Arena, promoter Jack Doyle staged 20-round world championship fights and, between bouts, allowed the sporting set to refresh itself in a saloon with the “longest bar in the world.” Among the famous patrons were newly minted Hollywood celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and Mack Sennett’s wacky Keystone Kops.

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Temperance reformers had yet to begin pushing through the saloon bans that soon would make Los Angeles nearly dry when in 1907, Doyle--a teetotaling engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad--used his life’s savings to lease land at 38th Street and Santa Fe Avenue from Vernon’s founder, John Leonis. Doyle first built a gigantic saloon, where 37 bartenders rang up liquor sales on 37 cash registers at a 100-foot-long bar. Behind it hung a sign--”If Your Children Need Shoes, Don’t Buy Any Booze”--and in the ceiling were peepholes from which to keep an eye on the barmen, patrons and pickpockets.

Years later, Beany Walker, the Los Angeles Examiner’s sports editor, who always carried a cane with a silver knob, walked into Doyle’s bar in agony. One of his cheeks was swollen from an ulcerated tooth. World heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, who operated his own boxing arena about 10 blocks away, happened to be leaning against the bar. He said he could cure Walker’s ailment.

“How?” Walker wondered.

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Jeffries pulled back his right arm and smacked the dapper editor in the jaw. Walker fell to the floor, as his fedora flew across the room. Seconds later, he sat up, smiled and said the pain was gone.

As Walker spat into one of the bar’s ubiquitous brass cuspidors, Jeffries said: “Sure, it’s gone, I just broke it for you.”

Their friend thus restored, everyone went back to drinking.

In 1908, Doyle built an outdoor ring, surrounded by wooden bleachers. It soon became the battleground for some of America’s greatest fighters, including Sam Langford, Joe Rivers, Joe Gans, Willie Richie, Benny Leonard, Bert Colima, Mickey Walker and Jack Dempsey.

That same year, the Pacific Coast League put in a ballpark with its left field corner abutting Doyle’s bar, which had its own entrance into the park. Between innings, left fielder Jess Stovall always refreshed himself with a beer.

Suddenly, Vernon was the hot spot for baseball and boxing.

Street-bred fighters with great left hooks had no place to hone their skills until Doyle built L.A.’s first training camp next to the arena. It even had its own handball court and swimming pool. Doyle preached discipline, self-respect and pride. Whenever teenagers started fights out in the street, Doyle put gloves on them, threw them into the ring and told them to “settle it like gentlemen.” More than 11,000 boxing fans flocked to the arena on the Fourth of July in 1912 to see the lightweight championship match between Adolfus “Ad” Wolgast and Joe Rivers. They wound up seeing a near-riot.

When the fight ended in the 13th round, both men were in a heap on the canvas. The hesitant referee started the count over Rivers as he helped Wolgast to his feet. Wolgast was up and the referee declared him the winner for reasons unknown, as outraged fans poured into the ring and the referee quietly slipped away.

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The next year tragedy hit the arena. On Aug. 22, 1913, future heavyweight champion Jess Willard knocked out Bull Young in the 11th round. Young died the next day. Two years later, partly in response to Young’s death, California legislators limited boxing matches to four rounds and forbade promoters to offer more than a $35 prize (usually a medal).

Among fighters, “medal” became synonymous with money. Most boxers made their demands for a cut of the gate receipts by asking, “How much medal do I get?”

Prohibition pretty much spelled the end of Doyle’s watering hole, though it went out in a big way. The night before the national law went into effect, June 30, 1919, more than 60 bartenders patrolled the bar, doling out drinks to an estimated 1,000 customers in what was the ultimate “last call.”

A few years later, Doyle tore down the old arena and built a 10,000-seat indoor coliseum in just 35 days. He replaced the four-legged stool in the boxers’ corner with padded seats that swung out of sight between rounds, and the unsightly and unsanitary water buckets were replaced with modern plumbing carrying running water.

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When Doyle replaced the wooden benches with orchestra seats, Arbuckle had a special one built for himself, about 50% wider than the average. Chaplin sat ringside. Fans watched him rise from his seat to duck, swing, shout and dodge blows, as if he were in the ring himself. He even refereed a match for one of his favorite boxers, Frankie Dolan.

In 1924, when the Los Angeles Olympic committee was seeking a venue for wrestling and boxing, it lent some financial help to Doyle, who built today’s Olympic Auditorium just south of downtown. A year later, Doyle spent thousands of dollars lobbying the Legislature to allow the return of 10-round bouts. In 1927, Doyle’s Vernon indoor coliseum, where amateurs rose to become world champions, burned when the adjacent baseball park caught fire.

When he died in 1944, lucky Jack Doyle was rich and long retired from his pugilistic empire. He’d struck gold in the ring, but not nearly as much as he found when he struck gold a second time--the black gold still being pumped from beneath Signal Hill.