“Con” Oram Punched His Way to Montana Fame

A saloon owner known widely as “Con” Oram gained national fame for his 185-round, semi-bare knuckles prize fight in Virginia City, Montana, against a man who outweighed him by 52 pounds.  Proving he was more than a pugilist, Oram, shown here, also has been credited by historians with advancing Montana toward statehood.

John Condle Oram was born in 1835 and reared in Ft. Finlay (now just Findlay), Ohio.   Originally from Maryland, his father was a blacksmith and a noted wrestler.  He taught his son both skills.  When he was about 20 years old and working in his father’s shop, Con decided to tour the West as a wrestler, challenging the locals for money.  Along the line he also picked up boxing skills.

By 1861, he had accrued sufficient winnings to open a blacksmith’s shop in Denver, Colorado.  Business proved to be brisk and soon he was able to hire several assistants allowing him, he said later, “earn money very fast.”  Having a staff also gave Oram the leisure, according to a press account, to spend time in the mountains “buffalo hunting and shooting game, living pretty much like a western pioneer, camping out and roughing it generally.”  He also honed his boxing ability in Denver and began prizefighting as a middleweight on the East Coast, including bouts in New York City.

By 1864, he returned West to Virginia City, Montana, where Oram, said to be a non-drinker himself, opened a liquor establishment he appropriately called “The Champion Saloon.”  It was located on the town’s main thoroughfare, Jackson Street, above.  The saloon is shown here in its reconstructed state as part of Virginia City’s historic district.  In an ad in the local Montana Post the saloonkeeper declared that his fighting days were over and he wished to run his saloon and live “as a private citizen.”  

Oram’s ads for the Champion Saloon emphasized that he carried a stock of the best liquor and cigars.  They also advertised his lessons in “boxing and sparring once a week,” signaling that Con had not entirely left the ring behind.  Additional evidence is a “sparring license,” like one shown below, issued to him by the Territory of Nevada.

Not long after he arrived in Virginia City, Oram was challenged to a boxing match by a whiskey-drinking Irish heavyweight named Hugh O’Neil.  The winner’s purse was set at $1,000, equivalent to about $15,000 today.  That payoff was sufficient to coax Con once more into the ring.  Given his size and weight advantage, O’Neil was a 3 to 1 favorite.  The prospective bout caused considerable excitement in the region. On New Years Day 1865, people began to pour into Virginia City in anticipation of the fisticuffs the next day.  One account called it:  “A dense crowd clad in as motley style as ever the sun shown upon.”

Because no building was large enough to hold the bout, a local saloonkeeper and liquor dealer named Nelson built a log arena on property he owned behind his store.  Called Leviathan Hall, it was the only boxing arena in the entire Pacific Northwest.  It held about 1,000 people who paid between $10 ($150 equiv. today) and $5 ($75) for general admission. 

For their money they saw what Sports Illustrated has called:  “One of the longest and most brutal fights in American ring history.”   Some accounts have called it a “bare knuckles” event.  It was not.  Both Oram and O’Neil wore tight-fitting unpadded gloves.  Round after round ensued as both men battled valiantly.  O’Neil’s height, weight and reach obviously gave him an advantage but Oram was wiry and quick, said by one observer to be a “bundle of venom” in the ring.  During three hours and 185 rounds the fighters hit the canvas 91 times, often deliberately to end a round.   Finally as Con seemed to be getting the worst of it, the referee stopped the fight, declaring it a draw.  The pot was split between the two contestants.

Today the Leviathan Hall site, later the location of a frame house, bears a sign as part of the Virginia City historic district and is on the Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places.  In contrast, no plaque commemorates Con Oram’s important role in the movement to create a new Montana Territory out of the existing Idaho Territory.   

According to a Montana historian of the late 19th Century, the men of Virginia City gathered early in 1864 on Jackson Street for a Western version of a town hall.  Among them was Oram, a man said to be “much given to orating when in convivial mood.”  Con mounted a wagon and began to harangue the crowd about their present hardships and the need to take immediate action to separate from Idaho and form a new political entity, with its capital at Bannock, Montana.

Apparently galvanized by Oram’s rhetoric, the crowd voted to raise money to send Sidney Edgerton, a Virginia City resident and former Ohio congressman, to Washington to present President Lincoln with a petition to create a Montana Territory.  The group, its work done, then repaired to a saloon, likely The Champion.  Lincoln agreed to the split and signed a decree creating the new territory.  He appointed Edgerton, shown here, the first governor.  

Oram’s fame as a boxer when coupled with his leadership in the territorial movement led to his being lionized in Virginia City.  A 20th Century historian has written:  “Con was one of the most popular men in town when he first arrived…He made friends with everyone and once was serenaded by the City Brass Band, an honor reserved for bigwigs.”

Over the next few years, possibly lured by the money to be made,  Oram continued to participate in the fight game, winning some, losing some, while continuing to operate his saloon in Virginia City.  In 1866 he expanded his operation, renovating The Champion and renaming it Melodean Hall, “the place of sweet songs.”  It became a theater and dance hall in addition to a bar. Some called it a “hurdy-gurdy” palace, implying that the music for dancing was provided by cranking a handle on a mechanical device.  The sign is visible at far left. 

When the Melodean failed to be profitable, Oram closed the hall and moved to Helena, Montana, where he opened a similar establishment.  When a few months experience in Helena also proved disappointing, he moved back to Virginia City and opened another saloon theater on Jackson Street.  One of the advertised attractions was Oram himself in a sparring match and an exhibition with barbells.

Eventually retiring from the ring and amusement business, Con spent his last years on a 125-acre ranch he purchased near Dillon, Montana, about 60 miles west of Virginia City.  There he raised oats and hay, much of which went to feed 80 horses and a similar number of cattle.  By this time Oram had married a woman thirteen years his junior.  She was Susan Alice Tout, an immigrant from Wales.  They would have four children.  As children they were not told, it is claimed, that their father had been a prizefighter.

As he aged, Oram’s hair turned white and he grew a long salt and pepper beard.  The pounding his body had taken in the ring almost inevitably led to consequences and his health declined while his children were still young.  He died in Butte in 1892 at the relatively young age of 57.  His youngest daughter was only about three years old.  I have been unable thus far to find the place of his burial.  

Con Oram’s life was a study in persistence and courage.  He had come West with no credential other than his physical prowess and written a page in its history.  In what might serve as a fitting epitaph, the Montana Post called him “Con the Fearless.”

Note:  Shown here is the cover of a 1969 book by Warren J. Brier entitled “The Frightful Punishment:  A new facet of the Montana frontier hammered out by the fists of Con Orem in the 1860s,''  published by the University of Montana Press.  It is a good account of the saloonkeeper/pugilist’s life, with emphasis on his prize fights.  Much of the information provided here is derived from its pages, as is the photo of Jackson Street.  The 113-page book is still available from used book sources and I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the fabulous life of Con Orem.