Keno-Pool game board placed at one end of the billiards table

1932

Bizarrely, Clarence Shockey’s stint as a Nevada gambling club manager was short. Here’s what happened:

Week One

July 11, Monday: The Reno City Council approved a gambling license for Clarence, who’d worked in real estate and oil drilling beforehand, both unsuccessful ventures.

July 12, Tuesday: Clarence obtained a building permit to remodel the interior of the structure at 232 N. Virginia Street at a cost of $2,000 (about $35,000 today).

July 20, Wednesday: An advertisement ran in the Nevada State Journal (NSJ) newspaper, announcing the grand opening of La Boite Amusement Palace* slated for 8 p.m. the next night. The club, touted as the first of its kind in the United States, was to feature vaudeville acts and keno-pool.

The gambling game, played by two or more people, is a combination of billiards and keno. When players shoot, balls either fall into the pockets on one end of the table or roll onto and stop in numbered holes on a keno board at the other.

Welker Cochran

July 21, Thursday: La Boite Amusement Palace debuted. Welker Cochran, then one-time national billiards champion, facilitated the keno-pool activities. Between games, various acts, from dancers to a four-piece orchestra, performed.

The club boasted large crowds for the first few nights, but then the guest count dropped off, becoming light.

Week Two

July 24, Monday: A fire broke out in garbage behind La Boite, but the fire department extinguished it before it could damage any nearby structures.

July 26, Tuesday: Five days after La Boite opened, Clarence filed to divorce his wife, Mabel D. Sumner Shockley, due to cruelty. He’d married her in San Francisco earlier in the year on January 25. Five months after their wedding, on June 30, Mabel had run a business personal ad in the Reno newspapers that had read: “Not responsible for any debts contracted other than by myself after this date.”

A month before Clarence married Mabel, in December 1931, he’d divorced his previous wife of six years, Mary Alice Welsh Shockley, in Los Angeles, also on the grounds of cruelty. He’d testified that she had had a pattern of leaving him when he’d lost money due to a failed business venture then returning when he’d gotten involved in a new, promising enterprise. 

The night of July 26, Clarence failed to open La Boite. The employees — ushers/entertainers/ticket takers and orchestra members — told the press they hadn’t been paid through that date and Shockley had shined them on. He’d arranged to meet them at 1 p.m. the previous day to settle up, but had postponed the meeting to 7 p.m. and then hadn’t shown.

July 27, Wednesday: Mabel didn’t contest the divorce, and the judge granted it.

July 29, Friday: An ad in the morning NSJ and the late afternoon Reno Evening Gazette promoted the re-opening of the La Boite Amusement Palace, under new management, that night at 7:30 p.m.

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Was Shockey just a flake or did someone, perhaps a local Mobster, run him out of town?

* A boîte is a small nightclub or restaurant featuring live music.

Photo of Keno-Pool Game Board from KenoPoolGame.com
Photo of Welker Cochran from the Library of Congress

Sources

Officer Herbert “Burt” D. Long

1932

At about 4:30 on a Sunday morning, a drunk Bartley “Bart” J. Smithson was target practicing in the Palace Club, shooting at a spittoon and a silver dollar with a 0.38 Smith & Wesson Special. Bullets were flying, some lodging in the building’s rear wall.

Smithson was a well-known resident and the proprietor of this saloon-gambling house in the rural mining town of Ely, Nevada.

What The . . . ?

Nearby, Herbert “Burt” D. Long, on duty as the night officer and in the Northern Hotel’s lobby at the time, heard the shots. He walked down Aultman Street to the Palace Club, entered and noted a few patrons inside.

A conversation ensued between Long, 32, and Smithson, 48, something like this:

— “Bart, you can’t shoot like that in here. It’s against the law.”

— “Why not? There’s a steel door in the rear.”

— “That makes no difference. Give me your gun.”

— “What are you going to do with the gun?”

— “I’m going to give it to the district attorney. He’ll just give it back in the morning.”

— “Like hell he will.”

Long took the revolver away from Smithson and ejected the shells.

— “If there’s any more of this, I’ll have to throw you in [jail]. Don’t go after any more guns, Bart.”

When Long was on his way to the door to leave, Smithson darted behind the bar, grabbed a rifle, pumped a shell into the barrel and called Long’s name. When the officer turned, Smithson, only about four or five feet away, shot him. Long, hit in the heart, fell and quickly died.

Law And Order

The sheriff and marshal rushed to the crime scene after learning of the incident. They busted into the rooms above the saloon-casino and arrested Smithson, who surrendered willingly.

In jail, he was charged with first degree murder.

At his arraignment, he pleaded guilty and was held over for trial without bail.

The court proceedings began Feb. 29 and lasted four days. The prosecution asserted that Smithson’s shooting of Long was premeditated, that once Long had taken his gun, Smithson had decided to kill him.

The defense counsel argued that Smithson had acted in self-defense. He presented witnesses who testified that Long had been armed, had used abusive language and had threatened to hit Smithson over the head with a revolver.

The prosecution, however, established that Long hadn’t had a weapon.

The jury found Smithson guilty but directed the maximum punishment to be a life sentence. That’s what the judge gave him, to be served in the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

Smithson’s subsequent appeal for reduction of the verdict to manslaughter and a motion for a new trial were denied in the lower court.

Subsequently, he took the case to the Nevada Supreme Court. In trying for a new hearing, he argued two points: 1) The judge had omitted critical information in his instructions to the jury and 2) Officer Long had lacked the power to arrest Smithson for the misdemeanor of firing the pistol because he hadn’t witnessed it occur.

The jurists, however, refuted the latter claim, stating Long hadn’t needed to see the offense take place if his other senses (his hearing) had alerted him to it unmistakably. They denied Smithson’s request for a rehearing.

Smithson was released after serving 12 years and passed away while living with a brother in Mason Valley a dozen years later at age 73.

Sources