Dempsey left school after the eighth grade and started working, holding such jobs as shoe shiner, pig feeder, and field worker. At sixteen he went to work in the region's copper mines. Around the same time, his brother Bernie began a brief career as a boxer, calling himself "Jack Dempsey" in honor of an Irish middleweight champion with that name (who had died, coincidentally, the year of Harry's birth). The younger brother followed Bernie's example and especially his training methods, which included racing against horses to develop speed, chewing gum for extra jaw strength, and soaking his face in beef brine (broth saturated with salt) to darken and toughen it and thus make him appear fiercer.
Dempsey started fighting too, calling himself "Kid Blackie" at first. He went from saloon to saloon, challenging anyone to fight who would take him on, and usually winning. Dempsey also took to hopping freight trains and living like a hobo (the popular name for homeless, jobless men), earning anywhere from two to ten dollars per fight. He first used the name Jack Dempsey in a 1914 bout in which, substituting for his brother, he beat George Copelin in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
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