Shelby's Folly: Jack Dempsey, Doc Kearns, and the Shakedown of a Montana Boomtown

by Jason Kelly

In 1923, not long after oil had started gushing from northern Montana fields, real-estate sales in nearby Shelby were declining, dimming the little town’s prospects of becoming the “Tulsa of the West.” Then the mayor’s son dreamed up a marketing offer to host heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey’s next fight. What began as a publicity stunt soon spiraled into a civic drama unlike any Montana had ever seen—or ever would again. Shelby’s Folly tells this story in full for the first time.


Against the background of boom-and-bust Montana history, the folly of Shelby’s would-be promoters unfolds in colorful detail. It took months to persuade Dempsey’s conniving manager, Jack “Doc” Kearns, to sign a $300,000 contract. With less than two months before the July 4th fight, the town still had no stadium and no accommodations for tens of thousands of expected fans. Jason Kelly describes the promoters’ desperate measures and their disastrous results, from the first inkling of the idea to the bitter end of the fifteen-round boxing match. Shelby residents identified with the underdog challenger, Tommy Gibbons, who went toe-to-toe with the champion in an atmosphere crackling with tension. Nerves were so frayed that a holiday firecracker exploding in the arena sent shockwaves of fear through the crowd. A soap opera of financial intrigue and chicanery, Shelby’s Folly chronicles how Big Sky ambition and the scheming mind of Doc Kearns collided to produce one of the most preposterous series of events in boxing history.

238 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Jason Kelly is an associate editor of Notre Dame Magazine. He joined the staff in 2015 after six years as associate editor at the University of Chicago Magazine, which received the Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year award in 2012. Previously, he spent 14 years as a sports reporter, columnist and editor at the South Bend Tribune.

Reviews

[Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good quick read. I wanted to learn more about the history as this is the fight’s 100th anniversary and in 1982 I spent a night drinking with the fight bell in Shelby MT at Hogan’s Tap Room. And was nearly killed the next day driving back to Calgary AB with a heavily intoxicated boss behind the wheel. It’s a long story…

[Murph · Rating 5 out of 5]

since i didn't know the history surrounding this fight, i couldn't wait to find out how it turned out.
i was held in suspense from the beginning. what shelby, montana did amazed me - loved this book.

[Calum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing Story!

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandpa and his dad built the parking lot for the fight in this landmark fiasco.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jason Kelly wove a tight tale with several interesting tributaries converging on a big wooden arena in the middle of nowhere. But the subtitle of this book is misleading. What shakedown? The implication is that Doc Kearns, Jack Dempsey’s manager, swindled the town of Shelby, MT, when in fact Shelby had no one but themselves to blame for the financial mess that resulted from the Dempsey/Gibbons fight in 1923. Kearns might have been an unscrupulous grifter (and as such, an archetypal fight manager) but he’s not a villain in this story. And this book desperately needs a photo of Doc Kearns. Kelly paints a larger than life, colorful portrait of the man, which makes his omission in the photo section glaring.

The book is more about challenger Tommy Gibbons than it is Jack Dempsey. For a while, I was disappointed by the dearth of biographical information on Dempsey, but in later chapters I came to understand and appreciate the emphasis on Gibbons. After all, we can read whole books about Dempsey, but few other published sources offer a close-up of Tommy Gibbons, who lost the fight but became the champion of the story. Jason Kelly does a fine job narrating the fight and infecting the reader with the pain, fatigue, exhaustion, and other physical and emotional dramas of a 15 round heavyweight bout. Going the distance with Dempsey was a feat of incredible bravery on Gibbon’s part, yet he received no money for his efforts. I appreciated learning about this skilled boxer who, in his good, simple, Christian way, was such a contrast to Doc Kearns; the whoremongering card cheat who celebrated New Year’s every night. Doc is loveable too - to a point - but Tommy Gibbons, aka “Thunder Chief” by the local Blackfeet, is a breath of fresh air and a true hero.

Kelly was wise to write a welterweight book of 200 pages instead of the behemoth that might have resulted had he gotten too deep into Dempsey. I like non fiction books of this length.

[Paul Miller]

For those of you who think Don King was the first of his kind, think again. This really fun, quick read tells the tale of a small town in Montana deciding that hosting a heavyweight title fight would be a great way to promote itself. A simple idea takes on a mind of its own, and everyone involved (not with Dempsey) ends up getting 'taken'. I learned a great deal about a time period (1920's) that I didn't know - e.g. Jack Dempsey was a WWI draft dodger.

Net net - for a change of pace read, you won't go wrong here.