Post-Star reported 1921 ‘Fight of the Century’ in real time

Nearly 2,500 people packed the street and side walks outside The Post-Star offices at the corner of Glen and Park streets in Glens Falls on July 2, 1921 to listen to bout-by-bout reports of the “Fight of the Century” boxing match between world heavy-weight champion Jack Dempsey and world light-heavy-weight champion Georges Carpentier.

“The crowd was so large that it filled the street from the doors of The Post-Star building completely across the street and extended in both directions for some distance,” The Post-Star reported on July 5, 1921. “Windows in buildings on opposite sides of the street were all occupied by eager fans.”

It was real time reporting decades before the Internet, years before television, and just at the brink of the radio industry.

The Post-Star utilized the most reliable real time mass communication technology of the time: an editor reading Associated Press bulletins over a megaphone through an open window on the second floor of The Post-Star building.

Once the report was announced, a typed copy was posted on the ground floor window for those to read who may have missed it, and a complete report posted at the end of each bout.

Reading of reports from AP writers began at 1 p.m., an hour before the start of the fight at Boyle’s Thirty Acres at Jersey City, N.J.

Dempsey knocked out Carpentier in the fourth round.

“The Post-Star was complimented by many on the splendid service rendered.”