The Oily Boid Gets the Woim

Oil money talked Shelby into staging a world title fight. With lot sales sagging in a town that hoped to become the Tulsa of the West, local promoters signed Jack Dempsey's manager, Jack Kearns, and threw up a wooden arena for about 40,000 on the edge of town. On July 4, 1923, Dempsey beat Tommy Gibbons by decision over fifteen rounds in front of a crowd far smaller than the seats. Dempsey kept his purse, Gibbons was paid expenses, and the backers and the town went broke. Champions Park in Shelby remembers the fight.

What the plaque says

The Oily Boid Gets the Woim A narrow gauge railroad nicknamed the "turkey track" used to connect Great Falls, Montana, and Lethbridge, Alberta. When the main line of the Great Northern crossed it in 1891, Shelby Junction came into existence. The hills and plains around here were cow country. The Junction became an oasis where parched cowpunchers cauterized their tonsils with forty-rod and grew plumb irresponsible and ebullient. In 1910 the dry-landers began homesteading. They built fences and plowed under the native grass. The days of open range were gone. Shelby quit her swaggering frontier ways and became concrete sidewalk and sewer system conscious. Dry land farming didn't turn out to be such a profitable endeavor but in 1921 geologists discovered that this country had an ace in the hole. Oil was struck between here and the Canadian line, and the town boomed again.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Baker Massacre — 1.2 mi