The city of Blue Rapids sits at the junction of the Little Blue and Big Blue Rivers in the northeast part of Kansas. There were 1,019 official residents when the United States census was taken there eight years ago, a slight decline from 1,088 in 2010, an even steeper drop from 1910 when there were 1,750 inhabitants.
The city includes two monuments, one dedi- cated to the wealth of natural resources in the area deposited and fostered by ice age glaciers 10,000 years ago, the other a memorial to a major league baseball exhibition played there in 1913 between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants. There is no memorial to the city’s boxer, yet the city’s historical records have not overlooked the best professional fighter who left Blue Rapids for the bright lights.
Fred Tobias Fulton would have been nineteen years old in 1910 and likely no longer a resident of the city where he was born, or a short term resident at best since his first professional
fight as a Minnesota resident took place on New Year’s Day,1913 in Hudson, Wisconsin. Minnesota had not yet legalized professional boxing, and local fighters often crossed the border to nearby Hudson to ply their craft. Fulton made the trip for his first five professional bouts.
As an adult, Fulton was 6-4 1⁄2 and 220 pounds, a tall and somewhat lanky southpaw, he had an 84 1/2-inch reach. By comparison, Muhammad Ali had a 78-inch reach. Primo Carnera, who was 6-5 1⁄2, had an 85-inch reach. Gunboat
Smith was quoted as saying that Fulton “could hit you on the chin while sitting down,’’ his reach was so expansive. Gunboat would have known. He was stopped twice by Fulton.
Fulton’s wingspan helped him knock out 68 opponents while compiling a 77-18-2 record during a thirty-year career. He was also stopped 11 times himself, a consequence of lacking what boxing writers at the time referred to
as a lack of fighting instinct. Nonetheless,his number of knockouts indicates his punch was often enough.
Despite that one possible defect in the ring, he still managed to kayo an exceedingly large number of opponents, and was tabbed with a nickname, “The Rochester Plasterer.’’
The moniker seems to have fit for any of various reasons – what he did to so many opponents, but perhaps, too, because he might have been a plasterer by trade. It is possible that he or
his father worked at one time or another in one of the gypsum mines in Blue Rapids, an occupation that drew working men to the area. One of the uses for gypsum, of course, is as the principle ingredient in many forms of plaster.
It is quite likely Fulton was familiar with the ingredient and the trade it engendered.
It all seems to fit, just as Fulton tried to do during a long career that included fights against some of the best of his time but didn’t include
a world title. Fulton had a somewhat stymied career, likely due to the lack of what might today be labeled a killer instinct.
Whatever the case, his fortunes improved once he hooked up with a manager of note, fellow Minnesota Hall of Fame inductee Mike Collins.
Fulton stopped nine opponents in 1915 and appeared headed for more fertile ground. He acquired a long-awaited opportunity at the end of the year when Collins arranged a fight against Jess Willard for March of 1916. When promoters in New Orleans balked, saying Fulton was not the drawing card they needed, that bout was canceled and the opportunity went instead to Frank Moran. It so happened that Fulton had earned a newspaper decision over Moran when they fought in 1920, the same means by which Willard defeated Moran in their fight.
Fulton fought fellow Hall of Fame inductee Billy Miske twice, drawing with him the first time and losing by kayo in their second meeting. Fulton was also kayoed, in one round, by Jack Dempsey, who would later become heavy- weight champion. Collins was so upset with his fighter when he failed to regain his feet against Dempsey that he left him, and the two men never worked together again.
Fulton crossed the Minnesota border to Hudson for his first professional fight and stopped one Tom Stone of Wisconsin in round two. It is of some note that Stone never fought again. He had all he wanted of professional boxing.
On April 17, 1943, Fulton fought for the last time in Montreal and was stopped in the first round by Maxie Spoon, a Canadian fighter who was undistinguished during his career.
Much of his previous history, his youth and the days in Blue Rapids, are now confined to unrecorded history, except for one brief note. Pat Osborne of the Blue Rapids Historical Society ran across a picture of Fulton some time ago and said the society has other information on him.
Told that Fulton was being inducted into the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame, Osborne was delighted with the news. “You just made my day,’’she said.
Fulton’s day has arrived, too, as an inductee in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
