Spud Murphy (SF)

Name: Spud Murphy
Alias: Edmond Murphy
Birth Name: Edmond/Edmund Joseph Murphy
Hometown: San Francisco, California, USA
Birthplace: San Francisco, California, USA
Died: 1957-12-09 (Age:63)
Pro Boxer: Record

Spud Murphy and Edward K.O. Kruvosky were accused by Miss Jessie Montgomery of Reno, Nevada of attacking her and a friend on Thanksgiving morning 1920 and tearing off her clothing--then submitting her to "insults, indignities and brutalities." Murphy went on trial the next month. [1]

These "unspeakable crimes" caused the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to ban prize-fighting in December, and to suspend all permits. Oakland and Fresno soon followed suit. (That December the Oakland City Council would require boxers to provide credentials proving that they had other means of support beyond boxing earnings.) [2]

After boxing was eventually resumed, San Francisco continued to ban almost all of the established boxers who had fought in their clubs prior to the ban, until boxing was legalized statewide four years later in late 1924. Meanwhile, many of these boxers quit fighting, or fled to other parts of California or to the Pacific Northwest.