James Jeffries is considered to be one of the great heavyweight boxers of his era, perhaps the best of all time. He owned Burbank property on the corner of Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Avenue in Burbank. On that property stood the Jeffries Barn, where Thursday night boxing matches were held from 1931 to Jeffries' death in 1953. It is interesting to note that John Garfield's big boxing scene in the Dead End Kids film "They Made Me a Criminal" (1939) was filmed in Jeffries' barn. After his death the barn was dismantled and moved to the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park in Orange County. The land was a vacant lot until 1976, when a shopping plaza was built.
From "A History of Burbank" (1967, Burbank Unified Schools):
In 1904, national attention was drawn to Burbank when James J. Jeffries, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, bought 107 acres for a ranch on Victory Boulevard. He paid $2,000 down and assumed a $10,000 mortgage. Only ten acres were placed under cultivation, and the rest was sagebrush and sand. Jeffries later developed another 93 acres and planted alfalfa. The market price for alfalfa dropped shortly after this time and it did not pay Jeffries to harvest his crop. He decided to put cattle on the land to eat the alfalfa. This proved to be a prosperous enterprise. Jim Jeffries became one of the country's foremost suppliers of thoroughbred bulls. Most of them were sold in Mexico and South America thus establishing Burbank's first foreign trade relations.
Jeffries built a large ranch home and a barn on the corner of where Victory Boulevard and Buena Vista Street now intersect. According to Wes Clark's father-in-law (who lived in Burbank at the time and who visited the Jeffries Barn a number of times to watch fights), the house and barn were separated by Buena Vista. The house was on the southeast corner (where a shopping plaze is now), and the barn on the south west corner (where Ralph's parking lot is now). Jeffries gradually sold parts of his ranch until only his home and barn were left when he died, March 3, 1953. The barn may now be seen at Knott's Berry Farm where it was moved to make room for the labor union building now occupying the site. The home deteriorated after Jeffries died and was torn down several years ago.
(NOTE: The labor union building - now gone - stood across the street from the Jeffries Barn site.)
A special 1945 birthday edition of The Barn News is here.
