"Wildcat" Knocks Them Cold
Editor’s note: Originally published February 3, 2018.
The early life of boxer Leslie "Wildcat" Carter is a mystery.
Some say he was from Edmonton, Canada.
Others say he was raised by his mother on an American Indian reservation in Oklahoma.
We know that as a boy he lived in Everett with his father, William Neal "Tomcat" Carter. The Carters lived in a small bungalow near 24th & Maple. His father worked at the Canyon Lumber mill.
In the 1920s young Les Carter worked at a shoeshine stand next to a furniture store at 2803 Hewitt.
The skinny kid had a knack for throwing punches. He was used to a hardscrabble life on the rough side of the tracks.
"In high school the kids from Riverside dominated in athletics," remembered early Everett native Thomas Rice Eckstrom. "They were a bunch of roughnecks. A lot of them had a hard family life so that was a way of survival. This side of town was just a different kind of life from the other side [of Everett, to the west, called Bayside]."*
Handbill for a fight at the Greenwich Coliseum. Carter is described as "the cat type" of featherweight.
Carter started boxing at age 14, earning the nickname "Wildcat" for his tenacity in the ring. He was a featherweight, weighing in at 110 pounds.
His first 15 boxing matches were held in Everett. He was 16 years old and he won them all— mostly with knockouts.
Until 1933 professional boxing was illegal in Washington state. Wildcat fought in private venues like the Elks Club and was paid under the table. These matches were not policed, and crooks took advantage of loose ringside bets.
When boxing became legal Wildcat fought in venues up and down the West Coast, knocking out opponents in San Fransisco, Bellingham, Tacoma, Seattle, and Los Angeles.
His father was his manager for part of his boxing career. "Tomcat" and "Wildcat" Carter: an early analogue to the father/son Griffey duo of Seattle baseball.
According to historian David Dilgard, Wildcat Carter was very popular with ladies.
One time there was a Navy ship in town and three sailors tried to accost Carter for talking to a couple of white women on the street.
Carter knocked the three sailors out cold and calmly walked away.
As a professional boxer, Wildcat earned $250,000 in three years. This monetary figure is according to a Herald article from 1930. If this is true, it's staggering. In today's money that would come out to over three and a half million dollars.
Carter only netted a portion of his winnings. The rest went to his "management." Boxers were easily taken advantage of by their promoters and coaches in those days. How much money he retained from his fights is unclear.
The Les Carter story tapers off quickly after his boxing career ended.
He lost four matches in California in the 1940s. Around that time he decided to retire to spend time with his family. Simply put, he didn't like to travel and was homesick.
Some boxing commentators speculate that Leslie "Wildcat" Carter could have been a household name if he had been willing to travel to and fight on the East Coast.
The first known mention of the "Wildcat" moniker in the Everett Daily Herald. Feb. 6, 1925.
Little is known about his life after he quit sports.
Carter worked for decades as a janitor at Birmingham Steel in Seattle. He developed dementia and died on an unknown date in 1985. Reportedly he was a funny guy and had a knack for playing solitaire.
I hope to uncover more information on him in my travels through local history. I believe his life would make a compelling short story or screenplay.
It's the Wildcat spirit that interests me. It's the chutzpah and grit that Les Carter had in spades. This is an Everett attribute: the city's fighting essence that still persists to this day.
Wildcat's story is an American parable about how a thin kid from Riverside can rise from a shoeshine booth on Hewitt to a professional boxing ring and make millions of dollars.
All he had to do was believe in himself and punch the hell out of whatever came in his way.
*This quoted excerpt is from the book Riverside Remembers: Stories of Everett's Greater Riverside Area published in 1987. It's available at the Everett Public Library.
Richard Porter writes for Live in Everett.
