A few years after losing his championship and being committed to an asylum while in the midst of increasing dementia, Wolgast escaped to the mountains of California to live a nomadic existence. He ultimately was returned to civilization and the stewardship of Jack Doyle. Does anyone have further information on this period of his life?
This article doesn't go into his actual life in the mountains but it does detail what happened with him around the time and the medical experiments on him that he sadly went through. http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/long-read-ad-wolgast-a-young-old-man/
Wow...kind of speechless after reading that. I remember some of this story but not in full detail. Hopefully the 2 orderly 's were brought to justice.
I can't contribute any new information on his wilderness phase. Its interesting that the piece attached above recounts a story of Wolgast shadow boxing in the halls of a sanitarium getting ready for another fight with Battling Nelson. I'd heard basically the same story, except in this version it was Battling Nelson in a sanitarium training for a title shot with Joe Gans. I wonder which is true, or if either is true. Either way, that image is haunting, yet simoultaneously beautiful in a weird way
I believe, I also once read the Nelson-Gans version of this. Anyway, we need to take such stories with a pinch of salt, as they may be just that - stories.
"The first mentions of “bearcat” came from the sports page. More than one boxer was given that name, including Ad Wolgast, the Michigan bearcat. Wolgast was notable for spending time in a psychiatric hospital, from which he escaped into the wilderness of Wisconsin. An article in the Battle Creek Enquirer and The Evening News said he sent a letter to friends letting them know he was OK and he planned to become a lumberjack." I haven't located the article yet but maybe there is more in it
Good find. I felt heartbroken, reading about the beating he took as an old man from the orderlies. Hope they went to prison to rot
Interesting article here from the Tacoma Times on how he used to prepare for his fights, isolating himself in the mountains, hiking in the cold, sleeping outside at night, hunting and living off the land … Definitely sheds light into what he was he was doing retreating in the mountains … seems to be a "survivalist" just fine https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1911-11-27/ed-1/seq-2/
Ad Wolgast passed away in Camarillo, California, which is where Camarillo State Hospital was located. Two other former fighters, Terry Kellar and Frank Fields, also died in Camarillo. - Chuck Johnston
