1940

“Apparently unaware that gold has been forbidden as a medium of exchange, a tall, dark complexioned cowpuncher walked into a [Reno, Nevada] gambling club last night and startled the dealer by casually dropping a handful of gold coins on the 21 table,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (May 18, 1940).

At that time, personal ownership of gold coins and bullion had been illegal for seven years. It was punishable with a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of double the amount of the value of the gold retained.

Photo from Pond5.com: by Fireflyphoto

1940

They couldn’t just agree to disagree. They were the sheriffs of two bordering counties in different states.

Sheriff Guy Joyner of Shelby County, Tennessee insisted illegal gambling was taking place just past the state line in The Magnolia State whereas Sheriff Elton S. Baxter of DeSoto County, Mississippi asserted no such activity was occurring in his jurisdiction.  

Fueling The Embers

Joyner reignited and escalated the ongoing dispute when on Monday, December 9, 1940, he had a 10-by-30-foot sign erected on the side of the highway in his county that read:

“Down the road in Mississippi are gambling dens run by thieves; they cheat you, they rob you, they slug you, they get your money.”

In this message, “down the road” referred to DeSoto County, and in fact many nightclubs operated there, within about 100 yards of the border. Joyner had armed deputies guard the sign around the clock. “Anyone who thinks he can drive by and shoot it down will have his tires blown off, and he will be dealt with severely,” he publicly warned (The Kingsport Times, Dec. 12, 1940).

Striking Back

Mississippians were unhappy with the sign. Citizen groups expressed their outrage, as did local newspaper editorial writers who suggested Memphis first “‘clean its own house’ before seeking to reform the world.”

Baxter said, “The battle that is raging between Tennessee and Mississippi is not over morals. Memphis and Shelby County want to keep the money that is being spent in the night clubs at home. It isn’t gambling and drinking or anything like that which is causing the rumpus, but a question of cold, hard cash on the part of Tennessee interests. Memphis people are running DeSoto County’s night clubs.”

When Mississippi Governor Paul E. Johnson was asked to weigh in, he paraphrased a Bible verse in Proverbs. “As Solomon said, ‘He that meddleth in strife not of his own making is like he who passeth by and pulleth a dog’s ear.’”

Upping The Ante

Joyner wrote in a letter to Baxter that “some day or night with axes, bloodhounds and sledgehammers, ‘I will break down those doors,’” referring to the clubs, “‘and make kindling wood of all gambling equipment’” (The Kingsport Times, Dec. 15, 1940).

Countering The Threat

On Saturday, Baxter replied: “I advise you to confine your activities north of the state boundary line. There are plenty of citizens in this county who are anxious to defend the county against your proposed activity. I intend to treat you like I would any other ordinary law violator if you, any of your deputies or any person connected directly or indirectly with your offices comes into the state of Mississippi and especially DeSoto County and undertakes to presume the prerogatives of officers of this county.” He reiterated he was unaware of any places with gambling operating in his county, but if they existed, he wouldn’t protect them.

Softening The Blow

Then, Joyner sought to learn where the exact boundary line between the two counties lay. He noted the dividing line hadn’t been established in court. “It may be, after all, those dens are in Tennessee,” he said (The Biloxi Daily Herald, Dec. 16, 1940).

Eight days after having the billboard installed, Joyner modified it, adding the words “two miles” and “Memphis,” perhaps thinking that might pacify Mississippians. The new version read:

“Two miles down the road in Mississippi are gambling dens run by Memphis thieves; they cheat you, they rob you, they slug you, they get your money.”

Taking A Stand

Subsequently, Johnson said he’d ordered operators of the stateline establishments to close and leave Mississippi. After praising the governor for that move, Joyner ordered the sign painted over. It was done. He noted it would be taken down soon, and that was done, too.

With the final word on the issue, in 1940 at least, Baxter said he hadn’t heard from Johnson that he’d kicked out the gamblers.

Sources

Mississippi photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Thomas R. Machnitzki
Tennessee photo from FourSquare.com: by KaShon N.

1940

After some angry husbands in Los Angeles, California complained their wives were gambling away the grocery money, two vice squad officers raided the Monday night birthday party of Ann Dicker, a 73-year-old great-grandmother, at which she and seven guests were playing poker. (The policemen had climbed up the drainpipe to stealthily reach her second-floor apartment.)

The surprise intrusion yielded a pot of $2.70, “as it was a five-cent limit affair.”

The ladies were arrested, taken to jail and fined $10 apiece. (It was Dicker’s third arrest and fine for illegal gambling.)

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“A disgusting travesty on justice,” the police commissioner said of the arrests (Reno Evening Gazette, Aug. 15, 1940).

1940-1943

The Barn Club casino’s existence during World War II was rocky and, therefore, cut short.

It began in December 1940, when Jack Fugitt, an entertainment machine business owner, and Walter Oswald, assumed the lease of the Northern Club in Reno and remodeled and reopened the place as the Barn Club. It was located at 207 N. Center Street.* “The club had a bar, gaming tables, pinball machines, and numerous other amusements,” described Dwayne Kling in The Rise of the Biggest Little City.

The Northern Nevada gambling house got expanded recognition through the owners’ sponsorship of the local baseball team in the Sierra Nevada league, as it, too, was called the Barn Club, formerly the Reno Club.

New Games Operator

It’s unclear why, but in August 1941, Otell Micheletti, who went by “Mike” and was from San Francisco, California took over running the gambling component. Soon after, he purchased the gaming concession from Fugitt for $23,000 (about a $386,000 value today), and offered poker, pan, 21, craps and slots. Prior to this endeavor, Micheletti had managed circulation of The Examiner (San Francisco), the San Francisco Chronicle and several other Bay Area newspapers.

Uncooperative With Authorities

The Barn Club immediately got into trouble with the Washoe County licensing board, which had given it 15 days to hang curtains on its street-facing windows and move back its gaming tables from the front of the business or face losing its gambling licenses. This mandate, applicable to other casinos as well, was to counter the perceived effect of the gambling houses making the streets look like a ‘Hollywood carnival’” (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 21, 1941).

The owners didn’t comply. The board — comprised of the county commissioners, sheriff and district attorney — rescinded the casino’s gaming permits, and deputy sheriffs closed the gambling there.

Three days later, a Barn Club representative, George Green, requested restoration of the licenses. The board members agreed to it, provided the management alter the front as requested and have its employees fingerprinted. To try to purge and keep ex-convicts and other “undesirable persons” out of the local gambling operations, the licensing authorities, the next day, made official the directive for fingerprinting of all industry workers in the county.

The Barn Club met both stipulations; fingerprints were taken of 70 staff members.

Money, Money, Money

In October, Micheletti stopped paying Fugitt the monthly rent for the space. (Fugitt would sue the Barn Club owners in June 1943 for 10 months’ worth of unpaid rent.)

In February 1942, two different lawsuits involving Fugitt and Micheletti came to light. Since purchasing the gambling concession from Fugitt, Micheletti had tried to withdraw from the bank the $23,000 he’d deposited for the acquisition. When he couldn’t, he sued Fugitt to recover the money, on unknown grounds. Fugitt counter-sued and won that battle; the judge ordered Micheletti to pay Fugitt the full amount.

Four months later, 16 slot machines were stolen from the Barn Club. Did Micheletti steal them to make up for some of the $23,000 he paid Fugitt? Or did Fugitt swipe them to recoup some of the $23,000 that Micheletti never paid him? Or was the thief an entirely different party?

The Doomed Relaunch

On August 14, Micheletti, along with two co-owners, “Larry” Brady and Irving Cowan, held a grand opening for the Barn Club. (By this time, the original co-owners Fugitt and Oswald had sold their ownership interests, which Cowan eventually had assumed.)

Brady, who sometimes went by William Lawrence Brady but whose real name was William Lawrence Hunger, had gotten paroled in 1937 from Folsom State Prison on felony charges and, previously, had served a term at the Preston School of Industry, a California youth reform institution.

Irving Cowan may have been the Irving Cowan who had a long rap sheet and was associated with Los Angeles mobster, Mickey Cohen, but this remains unverified.

If the requisite county-required fingerprinting was being done, how did Brady, and possibly Cowan, end up as co-proprietors of a gambling house?

In November, Cowan was arrested at the Barn Club for assault and battery. Ten days later, federal officers arrested Brady after he brandished a gun in the Barn Club during an altercation. He was charged with carrying a firearm across state lines (between California and Nevada).

Subsequently, Brady and Cowan sold their ownership interests, to Larry Tripp (who was associated with Chesterfield Syndicate member Louis “Lou” Wertheimer) and Joseph Scrivani, respectively.

By late 1943 and perhaps earlier, the Barn Club was shuttered.

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* The former Barn Club location now is part of Harrah’s Reno Hotel and Casino.

Sources

Teletypewriters

1940-1941

In a series of raids in December 1940, Washoe County deputy sheriffs confiscated gambling-related paraphernalia from three Reno, Nevada locations:

1) Bank Club casino

2) Washoe Publishing Company (WPC) (room 311 in the Lyons Building)

3) Western News Company (WNC) (room 15 in the Fordonia Building).

The equipment taken included teletypewriters,* Teleflash** units, telephones, switch boxes, typewriters and a radio. Documents seized were racing forms and sheets, forms for recording wagers, client phone numbers and account records, and more.

Unlawful Business Segment

These three enterprises received and distributed horse racing information — entries, betting odds, parimutuel prices, results and the like — to western United States locales.

The problem was that bookmaking, pool selling (the selling or distribution of chances in a betting pool) and dissemination of horse race data were against Nevada law. All gross misdemeanors, each carried a penalty of a $500 to $1,000 fine ($9,000 to $18,000 today), imprisonment of one to six months or both. Betting on horse races held in Nevada, however, was legal.

Two information streams involving the Reno businesses occurred regularly:

1) Data from the East Coast were teletyped to the Bank Club, which then phoned them to the WPC. From there, they were forwarded to 900 bookmaking/pool selling places in Nevada, California and Washington.

2) Data from the West Coast were teletyped to the WNC, which passed them on to the Bank Club and Reno’s Palace Club. The flow then continued from the Bank Club as with the East Coast info.

Steps To Eradication

Washoe County District Attorney (D.A) Ernest S. Brown filed a charge of illegal distribution of horse racing info against Bank Club Inc. and eight people, including Jack Sullivan and Raymond J. Poncia.

Sullivan (né John D. Scarlett) was the Bank Club manager and co-owner with mobsters William “Bill/Curly” J. Graham and James “Jim/Cinch” C. McKay, who were serving time in the U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth in Kansas at the time for conspiracy and using the U.S. mail to perpetrate fraud. Poncia was the casino’s book operator. The other defendants were linked to the WPC and WNC.

Brown also had phone service to the three entities disconnected and ordered the Bank and Palace Clubs to cease bookmaking immediately due to it being a public nuisance. The gambling houses complied.

The D.A. clarified that the county’s efforts in this regard were to “‘clean up’ a condition which gave Reno a bad name throughout the West,” not to quell horse race wagering, reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 2, 1940).

Ultimately, Sullivan and Poncia were arrested but released on $1,000 bail ($18,000 today) apiece.

Gambling Law Revisions

Roughly a year later, in April 1941, the Nevada Legislature legalized both bookmaking and betting on horse races occurring outside of the state. Once that occurred, the Bank and Palace Clubs restarted their bookmaking operations. Distributing horse race information, however, remained illegal.

The Defendants’ Fate

Later in the month, a hearing took place on the demurrer and motion to dismiss the charges against Sullivan and Poncia filed by their attorneys, George B. Thatcher and William Forman. (A demurrer is a response in a court proceeding in which the defendant acknowledges the truth of the allegation but claims it isn’t sufficient as a cause of legal action.)

Before Judge Benjamin F. Curler Jr. in district court, Forman asserted:

• the facts didn’t constitute a public offense
• the alleged offense fell outside the jurisdiction of Nevada’s Second Judicial District Court
• the horse race info law was unconstitutional in that it encompassed a topic not in the title
• the same law interfered with the freedoms of speech and the press.

Brown countered all of the defense’s points. He requested the judge overrule the demurrer and a preliminary hearing scheduled. Forman then responded to Brown’s arguments.

Six days later, Curler delivered his ruling. He ordered the charge against the two men and Bank Club Inc. be dismissed and the bond they’d paid returned.

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* A teletypewriter, teletype for short, was a character printer connected to a telegraph. Teletype also was a brand of teletypewriter.

** Teleflash was the brand name for a system that provided radio-type broadcast programming to commercial entities via telephone lines versus airwaves.

Sources