As I peruse old copies of The Brookings Register for the Years Ago column and for other research, I often come across the name “Hartwick.”

It’s never Kid Hartwick, but other persons by that last name, perhaps relatives of his.

He’s gone now, Kid is, fists flailing all the way, I suppose. But the stories and folklore of Kid’s prowess in the Brookings area as a prize fighter, strong man and town character continue.

He was born in 1880 on the high ground northwest of town near where the Highway 14 bypass rejoins the highway at the intersection that I still catch myself referring to as “Hartwick Corner.”

His name was Arthur, but as his skills at boxing caught notice, he adopted the ring name “Kid.” He wasn’t a big man, perhaps 140 pounds or so. But everyone who knew him compared him to a 140-pound raging bull. He’d fight most anybody.

In Kid’s day, promoters chewing expensive cigars and living in the big cities plied the countryside looking for boxers or men who thought they were boxers. They’d sign them up to fight in the big cities so the promoters could continue to afford expensive cigars.

Kid was spunky as stump water and never backed down. He signed on and left home when he was 18 or so, fighting in rings on the West Coast.

His cranium took the usual bumps that boxing delivers, and when he returned to Brookings, he was never quite the same again. Back home after retiring from the ring, he bummed around at odd jobs and even helped coach Jackrabbit wrestling for a while.

My memory of him in his declining years was of an old man in an oversized buffalo coat and wearing a cavalry hat, duking and shadow boxing his way up and down Main Avenue, scaring the bejeebers out of proper ladies he might encounter on the sidewalk.

He was harmless by then, and generous, often giving admiring kids nickels and a quick boxing lesson.

Daily he made the rounds of the local watering holes but never drank too much. He’d first drop in at Ray’s Corner (then Logues) to buy a cheap cigar. He didn’t remove its cellophane wrapper. He didn’t smoke it, but he chewed on the stogie, wrapper and all, until it finally just disintegrated.

Sometimes at Logues or other watering holes on his main street tour, he made a little money from elbow benders on bets having to do with his strength, like the time he earned a few dollars by betting that a car could run over his chest and it wouldn’t hurt him.

The front wheel of a little 1936 Ford coupe did run over his chest as he lay bare-chested in the alley behind Ray’s Corner, and he survived. He also earned a little cash and great admiration of the kids in town when he stepped forward to wrestle a muzzled carnival bear down by the post office. There were rumors that once at a Lake Campbell carnival he actually killed the bear he was entangled with.

That might be a stretch ignited by too many kegs of beer emptied at that joyous Fourth of July event.

In his old age, still living in a little shack at Hartwick Corner northwest of town, he walked to Brookings almost every day. Sometimes a friendly motorist would offer him a ride as he shadow boxed along at the side of the road.

But those who knew Kid learned it wasn’t a good idea to pick him up. Kid chewed tobacco and without thinking it through would often forget to roll the car window down before letting fly.

Kid’s home had no running water, so he usually came to town carrying an empty gallon jug to fill up before heading home.

One cold day, ensconced in his buffalo coat with his grease-stained cavalry hat hitched solid to his head by the chin strap pulled tight over his tobacco-stained jowls, he leaned into a cold wind and headed home.

The vinegar bottle of city water was under his coat to keep it from freezing. Somehow, Kid slipped on the road ice and fell on the bottle. It broke and the glass lacerated his muscular derriere.

Friends recall that Kid, the fierce boxer and bear wrestler, nearly died of embarrassment at the doctor’s office upstairs in the clinic across from Ray’s Corner, when an officious little gray-haired nurse ordered him to shuck his drawers for a better look at the wound.

He gave her his best prize-fighting look, but then reluctantly acquiesced.

They say it was the only time old Kid ever backed off from a fight.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.