On a show earlier this week we had a story out of the community of Boring, Oregon, which is named for a guy named William Boring (scroll to second story).
In other words, the town isn’t named Boring because it’s boring; in fact, it’s anything but boring, and today we have the story to prove it.
Let’s start with the headline in The Oregonian newspaper for February 26, 1905: “Boring’s Town-Terror Done by Prize Fighter.”
The article underneath that headline describes a local man called Free Coldwell as a local “pest.”
He claimed to be a prizefighter and, I guess to prove it, went around pummelling people.
The article says that in just a few months Coldwell “has walloped into dreamland several Boring fistic aspirants.”
The people of Boring could not abide such a boor, so they hatched a plan.
According to the newspaper, when Coldwell started once again “itching for a fight,” the people decided to give him one.
They reached out to a professional boxer, Tommy Burns, who would later become world heavyweight champion.
Burns had been training in Portland for an upcoming fight, and he agreed to come to Boring under the name “Mr. Bruso.”
Coldwell was larger than this “Mr. Bruso” and figured he had this bout in the bag, especially after he knocked how out of towner opponent down twice in the first two rounds.
But those knockdowns were part of the community’s plan.
Burns had agreed to play possum in the early rounds, to trick Coldwell; then, in round four, he started fighting for real and clobbered the guy in the nose.
In the fifth round, Burns punched Coldwell in the stomach hard enough that the so-called “town pest” declared the fight unfair and walked out.
The locals gave Burns the prize money, which was $4.90.
They were thrilled that Burns had helped them put the bully of Boring in his place.
And that he’d kept his promise to finish the fight in time for the dance the town was holding in that same hall.
It’s the last day of February everywhere except for a cemetery in Ashmore, Illinois.
There’s a tombstone there for a woman named Caroline Barnes, and it says her date of death was February 31st, 1882!?!
There were rumors that this had something to do with charges of witchcraft, but it was actually probably just a mistake.
No, the town of Boring wasn’t named such because it was a dull place to be (KGW)
St. Omer Cemetery Witch Grave (Atlas Obscura)
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