February 27, 2010

LaFayette honored Joe Louis with an eight-foot bronze statue near the Chambers County Courthouse. Born in a shack near LaFayette in 1914, Louis went on to become one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time and a national hero. He held the world heavyweight championship from 1937 to 1948 — a record 140 consecutive months — and defended his title a record 25 times. He retired with a career record of 68 wins and 3 losses with 54 knockouts, including a knockout victory over German boxer Max Schmeling in one of the most famous boxing matches of all time. Louis was inducted into the inaugural class of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1969 and the inaugural class of the Alabama Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Portrait of Joe Louis, Sept. 15, 1941. (Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Poster from World War II, 1942. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Joe Louis, former heavyweight champion, on guard duty at Camp Upton, N.Y., 1942. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Portrait of Joe Louis, June 8, 1936. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

This eight-foot-tall bronze statue of the “Brown Bomber,” Joe Louis, was dedicated near the county courthouse in his home town of LaFayette, Chambers County, in February 2010. The monument was sculpted by Tuscaloosa native Casey Downing Jr. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, W. Jayson Hill)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.