Orange County boxers in the 1920s had names like Walloping Wilson, Kid Africa, Buzz Saw Burrows, Spike Kelley, and Kid Mack of Wintersburg. In Huntington Beach, the boxing world centered around Kid Mexico.
Referred to by the Santa Ana Register in 1922 as "the pride of Huntington Beach", Kid Mexico--aka Todd Faulkner-- wasn't from Mexico and he wasn't Mexican American. Faulkner reportedly was born in Hope, New Mexico, and was dubbed with the nickname at around age fourteen when a fight announcer called him the "kid from New Mexico". Along the way, it was shortened to Kid Mexico by boxing announcers.
Todd Faulkner is reported to have earned the titles of bantamweight champion in 1914 (when he was fourteen years old) and welterweight champion in 1925. The Signal Tribune newspaper reported in 2014 that out of 387 career fights, Kid Mexico lost only 11. His rise to the top was part tenacity and part showmanship, and a lifelong tendency to gamble on himself, and, well, gamble in general. More on that later.
"He isn't very old, but his experience far outstrips that of his opponent. He began fighting when he was a little kid," explained the Santa Ana Register in 1922. Kid Mexico had "battled his way up" from a bantam weight to middleweight and "hasn't much of a punch but he is always digging in."
For a couple years between 1922 and 1923, the big rivalry was between Kid Mexico and the "Santa Ana mauler" Jack Iman. At their first match in Delhi (now part of Santa Ana) in 1922, the Santa Ana Register's Drew Moffat wrote it was a "torrid, goofy main event" with a sold-out crowd.
By 1923, Kid Mexico was promoting fights--and fighting in matches--at a boxing arena in downtown Huntington Beach. The Santa Ana Register reported on a "Clash in Oil City Pavilion" in October 1923 wherein the "blond battler" Kid Mexico would take on "the dusky" Ted Frenchie. At that time, Kid Mexico had a reported 275 fights of which he had lost only eight.
At first, the City of Huntington Beach wasn't sure boxing was a good fit for a beach town in the middle of an oil boom with oil workers who had a bit of cash in their pocket. There was plenty of rowdiness already.
A proposal came before the Huntington Beach trustees (city council) in 1921 for "boxing contests within the City under the auspices of the Huntington Beach Athletic Club". The board of trustees took it "under advisement" but denied it at their next meeting.
The next year, another proposal came before city leaders to allow boxing matches to be held on July 4th in the Airdome at Huntington Beach "in accordance with the laws of the State of California". The trustees were advised by the City attorney that this was prohibited by Ordinance No. 141 and the request was denied.
As one does in Huntington Beach when there is the possibility of revenue, the City trustees--just moments later during the same meeting--directed the City attorney to "draw up an ordinance amending ordinance No. 141 to permit boxing contests as provided by the laws of the state upon special permit from the Board of Trustees and the payment into the City treasury of a fee of $5.00 for each such exhibition." Each boxing match would require a special event permit and fee. Cha-ching!
Now that the dam broke and boxing was mainstream in the downtown, more permit applications followed. The respectable Antlers Club requested a permit to hold a boxing contest in the Odd Fellows Hall, permit application and fee in hand. Boom. Permit granted. More boxing matches were held in the City Garage on Fifth Street by the Nonpareil Athletic Club.
By 1925, boxing was so much part of the local culture that the American Legion organized an exhibition at "Kid Mexico's arena" on Fifth Street with Fidel La Barba, flyweight champion awarded the gold medal at the 1924 Olympic games. We were kind of a big deal.
Sports columnist Eddie West commented that Kid Mexico spent his "busier moments at his Huntington Beach arena collecting ducats from Orange County boxing enthusiasts." If Kid Mexico was making money off boxing matches--he later commented he averaged $10,000 per event--so was the City.
Kid Mexico won his March 26, 1924, grudge match against Young "Dynamite" George, who had bested him three years earlier. But, the fight conditions and the crowd in Huntington Beach wasn't the stuff of boxing dreams and there were only "a handful of cash customers in the barn."
The Santa Ana Register's report about the fight the next day--Mexico Gets Lucky Decision at Beach--was more blistering than the fight. The writer was apparently disappointed "there were no hard blow struck, no gore spilled or anything like that."
"With rain oozing down through the roof to make the ring slippery enough for skiing and a chilly Westerly blowing breezes along the rafters, the setting at the Huntington Beach boxing arena wasn't right for thrillers last night," reported the Santa Ana Register. "So there just wasn't any cauliflower ear melodramas."
Three years later in September 1927, Kid Mexico dropped by the sports desk at the Santa Ana Register to announce he was dropping the nickname and would be going by Todd Faulkner and focusing on boxing promotions.
Register sports writer Eddie West, explained in his West Winds column, "he has banished that fistic pseudonym forever for his more legal, rightful and dignified handle Todd Faulkner." The back story to this is that Faulkner was suspended indefinitely by the State Athletic Commission in April 1926 for "failure to keep in condition".
The Santa Ana Register noted at the time that Kid Mexico "was a popular main-eventer here during the heyday of the Delhi arena and at one time was considered one of the best middleweights on the Pacific Coast."
He did make a comeback in 1928, although by then the newspapers were calling Kid Mexico the "old Huntington Beach warhorse". He makes yet another comeback in 1930, challenging his old nemesis Jack Iman via proxy with Santa Ana Register sports columnist Eddie West (who seemed to enjoy his part in stirring the pot). Kid Mexico wrote a letter to be published in the June 5, 1930, West Winds column challenging Iman.
Kid Mexico wrote, "I'm sure Iman would be kayoed in--oh, say three rounds--but he and I will cram more action into those three rounds before I stop him than these other fighters give in 10 full rounds."
Local boxing enthusiasts grabbed their popcorn and waited for the response from Iman. It came a few days later in Eddie West's June 10 column. Iman, reported as a man of few words, wasn't having any of it.
"I hope in the near future to give him a chance to learn that it is harder to k.o. me with a boxing glove than it is with a pen," wrote back Iman. "Let's say it with leather."
His friend and Santa Ana Register columnist Eddie West lamented the fading of Kid Mexico from the boxing scene in 1931, writing that Faulkner "who refers to himself as a perennial gigolo is doing one of his annual fistic 'comebacks'" at the Wilmington bowl.
"The Kid was the best fighter Orange County ever produced," wrote West. "The rest promise much, never get anywhere."
RIGHT: A token from Kid Mexico's bingo parlor in Signal Hill. His entertainment businesses in Signal Hill included a taxi dancing hall, saloon and movie house. (Source: TokenCatalog.com)
What makes Kid Mexico's story even more interesting is what he did later in life, after he closed up shop at his Huntington Beach boxing arena.
Faulkner was working as an oil driller in Long Beach, still fighting the occasional fight, and still promoting boxing matches into the 1940s...sometimes without a license (a problem for the boxing commission).
In reality, the 32-year-old Faulkner was just catching his second wind. In 1932, he met 16-year-old Edna, his future wife, who was half his age at the time. He began successfully investing in entertainment-related enterprises, calling on his boxing promotions experience.
Faulkner moved with his bride to Signal Hill, where he built Edna a 14-room house and they raised two children. He is remembered as a larger-than-life character, opening an eight-lane bowling alley, taxi-dancing hall, restaurant, cocktail lounge, and movie house. He also ran a bingo parlor that "was ignored by the local police for many years", according to his obituary.
Faulkner was referred to as the "Baron of Signal Hill" in a feature by the Los Angeles Times in 1949, which noted he was "a guy with a less than grammar school education" who made it big and hosted parties at his house every weekend for local children. His wife, Edna, was named "Woman of the Week" by Eleanor Roosevelt for her work on behalf of juvenile delinquency.
In 2014, Ashley Fowler wrote of Faulkner in the Signal Tribune newspaper, "in 1951, he was accused of registering voters who didn't live in Signal Hill to defeat an anti-gambling initiative that would put an end to his bingo parlor. He plead guilty to the charges, was fined $500 and given three years' probation. The initiative passed and, without the gambling, his business quickly dried up."
Fowler reports Faulkner and his wife moved to Laguna Beach in 1952, but she was lost to cancer at age 36 three years later. Faulkner would return to Signal Hill, to the oil fields and friends he knew, opening a private Kid Mexico museum and charging a few bucks to visitors. As of the posting of this feature in June 2017, a framed photo of Hopalong Cassidy from the Kid Mexico museum is selling for $499.00 on eBay. Kid Mexico would have loved it.
In 1949, decades before his death in 1985, the Los Angeles Times' Cal Whorton reported, "there's a rumor that Kid Mexico's life story is beginning to interest several motion picture companies. Whether the flicker moguls go for the story, I can't say. Chances are they won't because it's so fantastic.
© All rights reserved. No part of the Historic Huntington Beach blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.
