Religion: Gibbons' Church

Gibbons Church

Hot afternoons, a poet says, have been in Montana, and few of them hotter than July 4, 1923. That day, the sun poured down without mercy on the little cow town of Shelby, where, in a damp prizefight ring, glistened and heaved the ruddy shoulders of Tommy Gibbons, a husky boy who wanted to be champion of the world. Jack Dempsey, the champion, was punching and slashing at Tommy Gibbons. Sweat glistened on the faces of the shirt-sleeved crowd. One man fainted. It was the heat. Another man suddenly had a bleeding...

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