Jimmy Delmar's Boxing Gym

[Guest danax]

I just got back from our Civic Club meeting and I got to speak with a friend and one of our oldest residents. She's 85 and I pulled her aside and decided to break the news to her of the Sears Building being demolished, wondering what her reaction would be and also hoping to pick her clear and agile brain. She gave a frown when I told her of its demise and mentioned immediately the "horrible flood" that consumed it in the year......I helped her out....1935. She described the whole DT area as being underwater.

The next thought that came to her was of her senior year in high school, 1938, and the jitterbug was all the rage. She said that there was a boxing gym behind Sears on Lincoln (Montrose) that was where the jitterbug contests were held. She said she liked to dance but was not up to the level of these contest dancers, so would go and watch. She was describing how athletic and creative these dancers were and improvisation was encouraged.

Anyway, she wracked her brain trying to think of the boxer who ran the gym, then she blurted, "Jimmy Delmar!". He'd been a pro boxer and was a local. She said he'd had one first over on Dallas and Waugh on the SW corner but the neighbors ran him out of there because of the all the car traffic and parking, and this was, she pointed out, when there were relatively few cars. I guess NIMBYs are nothing new. So, he moved over near the Sears bldg and apparently held local prizefights there.

I just wanted to relate this interesting tidbit and was wondering if any of our senior members had ever heard of this old facility or of Jimmy Delmar? She also said Delmar Stadium is named after him.

[Heights2Bastrop]

Do you know where she grew up? My mom graduated in '38 from Reagan.

[Guest danax]

Do you know where she grew up? My mom graduated in '38 from Reagan.

Not sure, I think the East End though. She didn't go to Reagan. I remember her mentioning the high school downtown..Central or San Jacinto. She said they used to like to go over to the Kress downtown and hang out. She also remembers all the nice old homes in Midtown and Riverside Terrace (her and her friends used to like to ogle the new ones that were going up there at the time).