Origin of the term "Pier Sixer" (brawl)

Factual Questions
1

Those of us who grew up in the Southeast in the late 60s and early 70s remember this as being one of Gordon Solie’s favorite expressions. I found this article from 1967 which uses the term–and contextually, it seems that the writer assumes you already know what it means.

I don’t think that Solie probably coined the term itself, although he might have had a hand in elevating its familiarity. However,I haven’t found a lot online for this term that doesn’t point back to Solie.

Anyone with any older citations?

2

It was used in boxing circles in the 1920’s.

Now, as to whether there ever was a real pier six, we haven’t found that yet.

3

Thanks a bunch!

4

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S1=ads-l

I’m not sure if you can use the site above, but if you can, type in “Pier six” and read the posts. It’ll show you what the American Dialect Society Mailing List has on it at this point.