Kenneth's Gate

From The Great Outdoor Fight

Although Ken Crandall chose to disassociate himself from the Fight following the devastation of his crops at Edwin Rose's hands in 1856, Crandall's anonymous friend felt that his role in establishing the Great Outdoor Fight deserved eternal recognition. When The Acres opened for its first Fight in 1857, all contestants had to pass under a plaque reading "In memory of Kenneth Crandall, supporter of manly honor through competition." The name "Kenneth's Gate" has been used ever since.

The original gate burned with most of the 1857 structure in 1919. Thus the 1919 gate which is still used today is sometimes still referred to as "The New Gate."

In addition to being the name of the gate through which all enter the Great Outdoor Fight, "Kenneth's Gate" has since come to mean an event which leads to much trouble and/or great challenges ("Man, getting married to Tammy was a real Kenneth's Gate.") It was also used as the title of the legendary flop Kenneth's Gate, Michael Cimino's bleak vision of Edwin Rose's life in the months immediately preceding the Great Outdoor Fight of 1856. The movie was a box-office disaster, and aside from a single showing on cable television has not been available commercially since (outside of an occasional bootleg copy being offered on eBay.)