How a small, mostly white town in Pennsylvania became home for Muhammad Ali

DEER LAKE, Pa. — They have flocked here by the hundreds, on a pilgrimage, drawn by the past and the spirits whistling through the maples and beeches. The sign on one side of Sculps Hill Road read “Welcome To Muhammad Ali Training Camp.” On the other side were two boulders, painted with the names of Sonny Liston and Jack Dempsey. Sixteen other boulders with the names of Ali’s boxing heroes, painted by Ali’s father as he was dying of cancer, ringed the property.

Six bouquets were scattered around the Liston boulder, where Wednesday afternoon Don Gardner and Mike Pocquat, two retired cops from New Jersey, snapped pictures and grinned in awe. “Muhammad leaned up against this rock right here,” Gardner said. They had driven hours to stand there. “Nostalgia,” Pocquat said. “It’s our childhood.”

Ali’s memorial service will take place Friday afternoon in his home town of Louisville. But Ali’s death resonated all over the world, uniquely so here, in the bucolic artists’ community that housed Ali in the final stages of his career, the little town that experienced an eight-year brush with The Greatest.

Ali built his training headquarters on a plot of land up Sculps Hill Road and became part of the community. Kids would rise at 5 a.m. so they could jog behind him on Drehersville Road. He showed them magic tricks and invited them over to watch old boxing matches on 16 millimeter film.

When he spotted the place, then just a deer path up a dirt road, he turned to George Dillman, a beloved friend who would come to own the property. “I love the feel,” Ali told him. “There’s lots of energy.”

Dillman, a karate champion who once trained with Ali, has owned the camp since 1997. It remains largely intact, a piece of Deer Lake that somehow both stands apart and blends. Located about an hour northeast of Harrisburg, Deer Lake is busier now, a new highway lined with fast-food restaurants cutting through it. The parts around the lake and the cottages still look the same. At the 2010 census, 667 of 687 residents were white, and none were black. “I think we have the highest per capita income in Schuylkill County,” Mayor Larry Kozlowski said, “which isn’t a lot.”

The pugilistic enthusiasm of one man gained Deer Lake an association with boxing. Bernie Pollack, the owner of Pollack’s Mink Farm, made a small fortune selling fur coats. The money allowed him to turn his boxing passion into more than a hobby. He started promoting fighters, from Golden Gloves to tenured pros, and inviting them to train on the mink farm, on which he built an outdoor ring. The seclusion of the place proved attractive.

One of Pollack’s fighters, Ernie Terrell, boxed Ali for the heavyweight championship in 1967 — and lost badly. Pollack used the occasion for an introduction. Shortly thereafter, looking for a respite from bustling, media-choked gyms, Ali started coming to train on Pollack’s farm. He liked the cool, fresh air and how the people in town allowed him to train in peace and blend in.

The outdoor ring quickly proved untenable. When a storm interrupted his training, Ali decided the heavyweight champion required a permanent home. Pollack’s brother owned land a few miles up Route 61, just less than six acres. Ali and his entourage drove Jeeps up the dirt road to inspect it. It was all woods and a small trail, but Ali envisioned his camp.