Presidents Who Slugged Someone

Teddy Roosevelt Conquers the Wild West

TEDDY ROOSEVELT remains the only president to have duked it out in a Wild West bar fight. In 1884, despondent from the deaths of his wife and his mother, Roosevelt left New York politics and moved to a cattle ranch in the Dakota territory. A smallish man, with spectacles and an Eastern accent, he cut an unusual figure on the prairie.

One night while entering the bar in a small hotel, Roosevelt was accosted by a drunken gunman. As Roosevelt told the story in his autobiography: "As soon as he saw me he hailed me as 'Four eyes,' in reference to my spectacles, and said 'Four eyes is going to treat.'"

Roosevelt sat down and tried to laugh it off, but when the drunk waved his guns and persisted, Roosevelt took action: "As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out and then again with my right... when he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head." Knocked cold, the bully was dragged out of the bar and later skipped town on a freight train. Roosevelt ate dinner and went to bed.

Even after he became president in 1901, Roosevelt continued sparring in the White House for exercise, often with much younger men. He was finally forced to quit when the sight in his left eye was damaged by a heavy punch.