Tex Rickard - Early Years

Early Years

Rickard was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His youth was spent in Sherman, Texas, where his parents had moved when he was four.

At the age of 23, he was elected marshal of Henrietta, Texas. He married Leona Bittick and acquired the nickname "Tex" at this time.

He went to Alaska, drawn by the discovery of gold, arriving in November 1895. Rickard was thus in the region when he learned of the nearby Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Along with most of the other residents of Circle City, Alaska, he hurried to the Klondike, where he and his partner, Harry Ash, staked claims. They eventually sold their holdings for nearly $60,000. They then opened the Northern Saloon, but Rickard lost everything, including his share of the Northern, through gambling. While working as a poker dealer and bartender at the Monte Carlo saloon and gambling hall, he and Wilson Mizner began promoting boxing matches. In 1899, Rickard (and many others) left to chase the gold strikes in Nome, Alaska.

By 1906, Rickard was running a saloon in Goldfield, Nevada. There he promoted another professional boxing match.

Rickard temporarily left both boxing and the United States in the early 1910s. This was the time of Jack Johnson's tumultuous reign as heavyweight champion. With the heavyweight champion a fugitive from American justice (Johnson fled following his conviction on Mann Act charges), Rickard decided that there was little money to be made promoting boxing in the U.S. and went to South America. Rickard returned after Jess Willard dethroned Johnson in 1915.