Years ago, a longtime resident once told me about a man called "Punchy" who would shuffle along the streets of downtown Houston throwing quick punches, like a boxer. The 1955 book "Sig Byrd's Houston" is full of similar, colorful characters with a good tale to tell.

Elza Ernest McKnight was one such man who toiled downtown.

McKnight apparently became so ingrained in the downtown scene that, upon his death 60 years ago, this month, it warranted an article in the Chronicle.

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Known to just about everyone as "Blind Mac," McKnight sold newspapers from a chair at the Shell Building (now the Magnolia Hotel) for 30 years.

The Chronicle was able to piece together the 74-year-old's life in a Jan. 14, 1958, obituary.

"As a young man he was big, tough and two-fisted, say the people who knew the McKnights.

Elza Ernest inherited the bulk of his parents' estate and he lost it across the poker table.

'He fell in with a bad crowd,' says one of his old friends, 'and they virtually cleaned him in cards by encouraging him to drink.' "

McKnight blamed his blindness on prohibition-era whiskey.

Public records list his address at the St. George Hotel, just behind the Shell Building. He died from cardiac failure, according to his death certificate.

McKnight is buried in the Panhandle town of Arlie.

J.R. Gonzales, a third-generation Houstonian, covers local history with an eye toward the people and events that have mostly been forgotten to time. Follow him through Bayou City History on Facebook and Twitter. He can be reached at 713-362-6163 or john.gonzales@chron.com.