The rumble was a major-fail. The Lakewood Rats crew and an Exall Park gang — about 150 high schoolers altogether — met “by appointment” on Greenville Avenue (wearing taped or handkerchief-bound knuckles) “where they proposed to mop up the streets with each other,” according to a June 30, 1942 Dallas Morning News article. When police informed these real-life Outsiders that they could not fight within city limits, the boys hopped in cars, bikes and skates and headed to Flag Pole Hill “followed by a gallery of grownups who wanted to see the fun.” Police again interfered to advise the brawlers that Flag Pole Hill also is within city limits. Again the kids relocated — now to Buckner and Garland Road (outside Dallas proper at the time), where they “promptly began slugging rival gang members. A major free-for-all was well underway when deputy sheriffs, tipped off by Dallas police, halted the action … with a few stern words.” Gang leaders talked with deputies and agreed to call it off for the night. Why the bad blood? “It grew out of football rivalries.”
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