The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-16
LIFE IS 4
 ROMANCE OF PLAINS
Something About the Latest
 Nevada Fight Promoter
A RIVAL TO TEX RICHARD
Was the Second White Child Born in Omaha and Spent His Entire Career in the West-A
 Unique Character.

| unique Chafacter
 Tonopah, New, Special Dispatch to the
 Cincinnati Enquirer.
 Tonopah's appearance on the puglistic map as the holding site of a worlds cham 1 pionship finish fight has given the country another fight promoter, who promises to at least rival, and probably eclipse, Tex | Rickard, the man who made Goldfield famous. This new impressario of the game of cuffs is Mike CW. WI Riley, manager of the Casino Athletic club, of Tonopah, the man on whom the success of the coming New Years Day contest between Did Herman and Joe Cans is de- pendent.
 Riley's appearance as a promoter of fights is another example of the energy and daring of the men of our western min ing camps. Ordinarily it is hard to find a man who is willing to risk a fortune to furnish the public a Roman holiday, but such a man is Mike Riley, and he stands to lose close to $500OO of his own money if his venture does not pan out But Riley realizes this more than any one else, and he is going to make the Gans-Herman fight the greatest success known in the history of the ring.
 As a type of the western frontiersman, Riley Is one of the best examples that even the prolific state of Nevada can fur nsh The west has been his home since childhood and like a great many men of adventurous natures, he has always lived on the outer rim of the frontier Forty two years ago Riley was born in Omaha, Neb., when the city consisted of three sod huts and a cattle corral. He was the sec ond white child to be born in Omaha, his father having come from the east to cast his lot in the then wild west. Riley, Sr., engaged in the freighting business, establishing a route between Omaha and Sioux City and the Black Hills. As a boy of nine Mike Riley helped | his father in trip across the plains, dur ing the which the youthful "bullwhacl1er" killed his first buffalo and helped his fa- ther's teamsters repe1 an attempt by the Indians to run off the stock.
 Friend of Buffalo Bill.
 Shortly after this the Riley family moved to Deadwood S. D., then the live Hest and wide-open town in the country. l The glamour of the life of the mining camp and the cattle country seems to have 1 fixed itself upon Riley, as he has spent but few years of his life away from the | broad plains and mining camps of the west. Until he was IS years of age he l helped his father punch cattle In the Bell | flush river country, South Dakota, where he met and became friendly with Buffalo Bill'' Cody, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill and | ntl fo oI,o history. Riley was sitting in a chair just back of Wild Bill at the time that the fa- nous scout was shot to death. He rode l bucking bronchos with Calamity Jane and | often camped and fshed with Buffalo Bill l How did you come to leave Dead- wood?' the writer asked
 Railroads drove me out" came the laconic reply. "As fast as they'd finish road I'd move on to the open plains | again."
 When Deadwood got too civilized for | Riley he moved to Colorado, where he spent several years between that center and Cheyenne, the then great cattle coun- try Finally Cripple Creek was discovered | and Mike Riley among the first to get
 into business in the new camp. He started a combination saloon, gambling house and | vaudeville show house. Riley put the | earnings of years. some S40,000, into the project, and the day before he was to 1 open the entire camp was wiped out by
 fire, and Riley borrowed enough money l to get to Seattle. whither he had been drawn by stories of the great northwest.
 In Seattle Riley again went into the amusement business. He built Rley's | Arcade, the biggest vaudeville house in | the United States, and sold out for for l tune. The news of Tonopah's wonderful l opportunities attracted the adventure low ing Riley, and two years ago he came to | this camp to look around. He opened a concert hall and gambling house in a | teht, and at present has the largest es- tablishment of it's kind in the entire state in one of Tonopah's most staple buildings
 Riley has been acting in managerial capacity for dozens of his big projects, but l the handling of the Cans Herman contest | Is about the greatest thing that he has | tackled, although he has handled many smaller fights. In speaking of his object in breaking into the game. Riley said:
 Lover of Sports.
 "I am in the fight game to stay. I am a lover of good sports and nothing appeals | to me quite so strongly as does a good l clean boxing match between two we'll l trained athletes. l saw from the Goldfield l fight that Nevada is the natural center for holding fights in the future. so I de- | C1ded to break in. The GanS-Herman l fight is the first. but will not be the last affair of the kind that I will pull off here l in Tonopah Our club is putting a big sum of money into the arena and we are sure that it will be the finest building of tho kind in the country. We are building | permanently and as fast as we get one | fight off our hands we will make another l match, I figure that Tonopah can hold | about three or four worlds champion | ship contests each year and make them all | successes l am dlckering al present for match in the spring and later on may be able to announce match that will aston l ish the sporting public.
 For the present we will bend all our l energies toward making the Cans Herman match financial success. as already 1t is | great success from the standpoint of | being the best match in the lightweight 1 division, despite the fact that certain peo- pie, ignorant of Herman's great fighting qualities, are trying to belittle the match | My advice to the sporting public Is to l look out for surprise. Every one knows Cans. but let me tell you that Herman | Is the one man in the business who can take the champions measure if it is to 1 be taken. Just mark my words and see | if am not right"
 |