Saturday, September 22, 2018

Tug-of-war Captain

After following the musical talents of Frank A. Campusano, this post looks at his competitive side. Frank appears in several articles participating in events with the Los Angeles Athletic Club. In 1891, he captained a team in an international tug-of-war contest. He would have been 32 at the time.
LA Herald, 11 Nov 1891.

LA Times, 16 Nov 1891.
Preparations for the epic tug-of-war contest were reported in the news in November 1891. Frank must have been training regularly with his team (while performing as a musician at night and working during the day) at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
LA Times, 23 Nov 1891.
LA Herald. 5 Dec 1891.

Over 4000 people saw the contest on opening night on 7 November 1891. Frank's team won their opening tug. I have extracted out some portions of the long article describing their comeback win.

LA Herald, 8 Dec 1891.
The following night the teams returned for another tug-of-war battle at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Large articles ran in both the LA Times and Herald describing the contest. Frank's team won again in a surprise victory of the Germans. It is interesting that the "Spanish" team was really made up of "native Californians". The two teams battled for two hours and eight minutes.
Newspapers.com. LA Herald, 9 Dec 1891.
LA Times, 9 Dec 1891.
The next night the Spanish team won again, beating the French team in ten minutes.
LA Times, 11 Dec 1891.


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