Jess Willard Wins Championship

When Jess Willard knocked out the big smoke, Monday, he won the championship of the world, and put Emmett, Pottawatomie County, on the map. Willard was born on a farm near the little town of Emmett. He is 28 hears of age, and for some time he ran livery stable at Emmett. When a lad he established a reputation as a bronco buster and broke all the wild horses and males for farmers who didn’t have enough nerve to do the job themselves. He never drank intoxicants, which is certainly something new in the line of prizefighting. Many Wamegoans are acquainted with the champion and it appears to be the general opinion that he is the kind of a man who can stand prosperity as well as he stood the punches of Johnson.  The Wamego Reporter, Wamego, Kansas.  April 8, 1915.  (c) Transcribed by Janeice Crosson for the Kansas Council of Genealogical Societies, Inc.