(All photos courtesy of the Antiquities of the Prize Ring Photo Archive, Hilliard, Ohio)
Although Grand Beach is a golf community that concludes each summer with the crowning of its golf champions, in 1937, a different type of champion took centerstage. In that year, the boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World, James J. Braddock, and his manager, Joe Gould, chose Grand Beach as the setting for his boxing training camp leading up to a fight billed as “A Night to Remember.” On the night of June 22, 1937, the 31-year old Irish-American boxer known as the “Cinderella Man,” was to defend his championship crown by fighting a youthful Joe Louis at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.
Preparations began in Grand Beach on April 30th when the entourage set up its headquarters at the Pinewood Inn (Tall Oaks Inn). For nearly two months, Braddock and his sparring partners, Charlie Massera and Joe McCarthy, spent their days training for the big fight. Daily conditioning, led by Braddock’s trainer Doc Robb Lippman, included running on the beach, through the woods, and on the streets of the village to strengthen his legs, chopping trees to build shoulder muscles, and a regimen of golf and tennis.
While Braddock’s training camp was welcomed in Grand Beach, his opponent Joe Louis was not as fortunate. Even though the fighter chose summer resort Lake Geneva, WI for his headquarters, homeowners there voted against hosting Joe Louis and his associates. The “Brown Bomber” then moved his training to Kenosha, WI.
At Grand Beach’s Golfmore Hotel, labeled by the press as one of the most pretentious sites for boxing training quarters, a ring was constructed with surrounding seating for over 1,000 onlookers. The public was invited to witness shadow boxing, ring drills, and workout bouts at the “Golfmore Training Camp” which officially opened to over 100 members of the press on May 20.. The Golfmore Training Camp became the “Camp of Champions” when boxing’s Welterweight Champion, Barney Ross, arrived in Grand Beach to train for his own title bout. The camp continued in Grand Beach up until a few days before the fight.
While confident and in excellent shape from his training at Grand Beach, on June 22, 1937, the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis defeated the “Cinderella Man” Jimmy Braddock with a knockout in the eighth round. Before a crowd of 55,000 at Comiskey Park, Joe Lewis became the youngest ever to ascend into the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World. Nonetheless, Jimmy Braddock, a poor, depression era boxer that rose to become champion of the world, has been recently immortalized in a motion picture now on video entitled the “Cinderella Man.”
