continued....

The events around an evening which wrapped up the 1947 Gypsy Road Tour would go onto become a famous story in Life Magazine and later made into a movie starring Marlon Brando called 'The Wild One' in 1953.

After the war AMA had authority over nearly all the motorcycle events held in the United States, including an annual motorcycle rally called the Gypsy Tour which took place in the sleepy farming community of Hollister, California, 40 miles southeast of San Jose.  Scheduled events included hill climbs, a slow race, digout race and plank ride with the big AMA flat track race featuring a winning purse of $1200. In 1947 this grand prize was a large enough to attract around three to four thousand bikers. Even the organizers of the event didn't expect such a large attendance. Bikers slept anywhere they could lay their sleeping bags.

The seeds of trouble were sown when crowds were turned away from an award ceremony and dance held on a Saturday night at the end of the Gypsy Tour Rally. Due to the unexpected large crowds everyone was turned away except for AMA members or AMA recognized motorcycle club members, leaving all the other riders looking for a place to party.

Most of the riders who had been turned away from the AMA event ended up downtown on San Benito Street, but soon the bars and restaurants ran out of beer leaving the bikers who loved to live life to it's fullest drinking hard liquor. Some say the bars pretended to run out of beer to make the bikers buy the more expensive liquor, others claim that no-one thought the bikers could afford the liquor and they just hoped ‘running out of beer’ would be an easy way to stop the drinking. But like the events surrounding this notable weekend, what actually happened on that night, and even their magnitude depends on which story you believe.

The official Booze Fighter history claims ‘Actually, [only] 300 to 400 people showed up [to the AMA event] and partied as they had done in previous years. The Booze fighters were the guys spinning donuts and drag racing up and down the street. The street had been blocked off by the town specifically for that purpose. They were the "show-offs" without a doubt.’

Others claim that although there were arrests for drunkenness and public disorder, the local law enforcement never felt that matters were out of hand.

Indeed, one recollection has the police taking the band from the official AMA award ceremony to the partying bikers on the back of a flatbed trailer to entertain them and help keep control of the crowds.

Yet another version, which tends to agree with the Booze Fighters, ‘Prodded by boozy dares, bikers raced one another down the main drag. Others spun rubber doughnuts on the pavement, or popped up their front tires and balanced on their back wheels. Water balloons and beer bottles rained down from second-story windows, and just for laughs, a couple of men motored straight into local saloons to the cheers of pleased patrons.’

A darker history

A different account claims ‘drag races and bar and street fights were common with one member of the Pissed Of Bastards arrested and jailed. A large mob gathered and demanded his release. When local authorities refused, the estimated mob of 750 literally tore the small community apart.’

Regardless of what actually happened, the public’s perception was shaped by the official newspaper reports which claimed sixty people were injured, some seriously, a night court convened and the supposed use of tear gas to bring unruly bikers under control. But it was the staged Life photograph of a slovenly motorcyclist with beer bottles gathered at his feet which caused a sensation and branded bikers as lawless rebels. The continuing media frenzy would imprint that image of the rebellious biker on the mind of the American Public. It’s widely acknowledged that this picture was staged and there are rumors that the others that accompanied it in the same article such as photographs of police officers using tear gas rifles were as well. This leads the further claim and accusation that many facts used in the story were less than truthful as well.

When the media and consequently the American public reacted to the darker side of the story's telling the AMA tried to distance itself and its members from the bad publicity and the negative feelings towards motorcyclists by claiming that “99% of all of their members are law-abiding citizens and only 1% are 'outlaws' ”.