Ann Arnold (Author)

Talking about her book,
' Gangsters and Gamblers of Jacksboro Highway

July 12, 1999

Ann Arnold, author of "Gamblers and Gangsters of Jacksboro Highway" gave a throughly entertaining evening that was held in our city hall, which was packed with an overflow crowd of interested members and curious citizens. Chairs had to be set up in the outer hallway to accomodate the large numbers that attended. We were obviously very delighted and honored to have her speak at our meeting.

Mrs Arnold begins; I do thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and to talk about a period of our history that had not been covered previously.

A question I'm frequently asked is, What's a nice girl like you doing writing about gamblers and gangsters? Well I read Rick Selcer's book, Hell's Half Acre, and if you haven't read it, I would recommend it. It was about the crime and corruption following the Civil War.

I moved to Fort Worth in 1949, and I thought, Gee! there was a whole lot of crime and corruption going on about that time and I want to read about it....but couldn't find any book that covered it. The Chamber of Commerce had some beautiful coffee table books, but none that covered the subject of the gamblers and gangsters. So I went to the Fort Worth Public Library, the local and geneology section, and asked if they had any information about that time and that period. The librarian gave me a folder of the 1951 Grand Jury Indictments, and that was my stepping stone. From there I interviewed some people who were indicted, I interviewed the children of some of the people who were indicted, I interviewed some of the reporters who covered those activities, and the result was this little book of Gamblers and Gangsters.

By the way, when you write a book and you sign a contract, the publisher has the option to put whatever cover they want and whatever title they want. Well now....I did not pose for this cover. (the whole room laughs. Cover of book has scantily dressed girls.)
But at any rate, this is the book and let me share with you some things from the book.

Dub Ray speaks up and asked, "Mrs Arnold, Do you want to know where it came from?" (in reference to the cover) Yes! She says. Then as Dub holds up what he brought, she explains: The original, 1936 Casa Manana, this is the program! And Billy Jerry is the one that gave me her husband's copy of that very program. That's absolutely right. (She nods to Dub Ray ) Linda Claridge said, "he has everything". Peggy Holland said, "He's got Sally Rand's autograph in there." Ann Arnold then continues; Sally Rand was an interesting lady. Dub Ray speaks back up and says, "Yes, there she is, (showing a picture of Sally Rand scantily dressed). Some man's voice chimes in, "Yeah..very interesting!" (Everyone laughs.) Another voice pops up and says, "that page looks pretty worn!" (Everyone really laughs at Dub Ray's facial expression.) Ann Arnold then begins again: One of the Star Telegram reporters interviewed Sally Rand and she was reading the Bible in her dressing room and it happened to be opened to the scripture that said, How long oh Lord will you look upon me? (Ann Arnold laughs out real big, then the whole room laughs.)

Ann Arnold picks back up her story; 10 year old Bobby had a sore throat and didn't go to school Wednesday, November 22, 1950. About 9:15 that morning he felt better and decided to go down to the kitchen. He was on the stairs when the house shook so violently, he almost lost his balance.....Earthquake!! But Fort Worth Texas isn't earthquake country. In the 1950's, it was gambler and gangster country. Bobby's neighbors, gangster Nelson Harris and his pregnant wife Juanita, had just been blown to bits by a car bomb. The bomb also blew the lid off the most open secret in town. Unknowingly Nelson Harris was a maryter, because of his death, citizens realized crime and corruption was a serious problem that could no longer be swept under the municipal rug. So that bombing was actually the beginning of the unfolding of the situation at that time.

Now as long as gamblers and gangsters killed each other out at Lake Worth and at known rough places, that was one thing, but this was in a nice neighborhood. Not only that, Juanita Harris was 8 months pregnant and she and her unborn child were killed. The blast was so great that it blew parts of the car into neighboring houses. Battery acid was blown into a neighbor's house and into a baby's crib, fortunately the baby was not injured. But nevertheless this became so egregious (remarkably bad; flagrant) that action had to be taken.

All of this started about the late 1930's, when Amon Carter was the number one promoter of Fort Worth. When Dallas won the 1936 Centennial, Amon Carter was livid. And he was determined that, Let em' go to Dallas for education, Let em' come to Fort Worth for entertainment. So he hired Billy Rose at a thousand dollars a day to promote what was the first Casa Manana. Now that figure is accurate, because I checked it twice. I mean....Francis, that's more than you and I made in a day. (Chuckles came from room). We worked for the school system, we didn't make that much. A thousand dollars a day !.........
So Billy Rose brought Sally Rand and others, and Fort Worth became known as the Entertainment Mecca.

Now you are familiar with the Jacksboro Highway, and the fact that the Jacksboro Highway was the Number One artery to West Texas. Of course West Texas being "dry", and I'm not talking about lack of rain, (several chuckle). Bootleggers would come in and buy liquor on the Jacksboro Highway, and go back and sell their wares out in West Texas.
In fact it got to the point if you were driving a Lincoln or a Buick, and the trunk was visibly lower than the hood of the car, everybody thought you must be a bootlegger, having the trunk loaded with liquor.
Ranchers and oil field roughnecks would come into Fort Worth and use the Jacksboro Highway as their stopping place, for a little bit of R&R (rest & relaxation). And so the Jacksboro Highway became what was called, "Thunder Road". A pretty wild and woolly place.

Getting back to this Grand Jury. A record number of 32 gamblers were indicted, and some of these gamblers were also gangsters. And let me share with you some tidbits about some of them.
Tincy Eggleston was one of the most notorious of these gangsters. Clancy was a complex man. . . except for killing people. . . he was law abiding. (The whole room cracks up laughing)
You know, he was a loving father. His little girl went to Rosemont Middle School, and Tincy had to go pick her up one day, (you know how we had to take our kids to the Orthodontist or something like that), so you go in and you tell the secretary that you're Tincy Eggleston and you want to pick up the daughter, so they send a runner for the little girl and Tincy sits down and lights up a cigarette. Well now Francis, (friend of Ann Arnolds) you know that the Superintendent, or even God is not allowed to smoke in the school office! (everyone laughs) But the secretary knew who Tincy Eggleston was and she wasn't about to tell him to put that cigarette out. But a Deputy Sheriff who knew Tincy well said if she had asked, he very graciously would have put the cigarette out.
Well Tincy was so notorious that Chief Cato Hightower issued an order that anytime any policeman saw Tincy Eggleston on the street they were to bring him in. So these 2 uniformed cops see this car, it's just a plain vanilla car and it's got 4 guys in it and one of them is Tincy Eggleston. Well, they pull that car over and they whip out their guns and they're about to arrest 2, Dallas plain clothed detectives, who are taking Tincy to Dallas to question him about a murder. There was a reporter in the car and the reporter told me, that as they were driving out through what is now North Richland Hills, they had to stop for a traffic light. And Tincy Eggleston said, "That's the best thing they ever did, you know some little kid is gonna get killed running across this street." Mrs Arnold chuckles. Here he is with maybe as many as a dozen murders under his belt and he's concerned about a little kid getting run over crossing a busy highway.

One of the murders for which Tincy was indicted, but he was killed before it came to trial, he was charged with being the hit man for William Clark. Now William Clark was an oil man who lived on Winton Terrace in the Park Hills section of Fort Worth. William Clark was an older man and was married to a younger woman. The police believe that the younger woman, the wife, who was about to be divorced and cut out of the will, hired Tincy Eggleston to kill her husband. However, Tincy himself was killed before the trial came up.

Now there was another one that they believed Tincy was involved with and that had to do with Edell Evans. Edell Evans was a pimp, and in the hierarchy of criminals, pimps were just barely above child abusers. And the real hit men, they didn't have much use for Edell Evans.
But anyway Edell Evans was giving a club owner a hard time, and the club owner who is now in his 80's, crusty old man, used to be a body guard for Benny Binion, he was telling us this situation. That Edell Evans was giving him a hard time, so he just happened to mention it to Eggleston. Well the first thing you know, there's a contract out on Tincy Eggleston. So the hit man is ready to kill Eggleston and Tincy said, "Well I'm gonna be dead anyway, I'm just curious, who put this contract out on me? And the guy said, "I might as well tell you, it was Edell Evans." So Tincy said, " How much is he gonna pay you?
Well he paid me $10,000. now and $10,000., after I kill you. Tincy said, "Well look, you've already got $10,000., I'll pay you $15,000. If you kill Edell." (Room breaks out in laughter) And the guy thought, well I ain't very good at math, but I think that's a better deal. So he set it up that Edell Evans was lured out to Lake Worth, and Tincy Eggleston and his running mate, Cecil Green, ambushed Edell.
Now the story goes according to Carl Freund, who was a press reporter who covered these activities, that either they hit Edel and knocked him unconscience or the bullet grazed him, for some reason he was unconscience but not dead. And they were digging this shallow grave, and there were many shallow graves out at Lake Worth in that area, anyway Edell Evans regains conscienceness and reaches up and bites Eggleston on the ankle. Well, Carl Freund said the story goes that you could hear Eggleston scream in 3 counties. They put 2 bullets in Edell's head, and this time he didn't reach up and bite anything else . . . . . . .that took care of him.

But at any rate, Tincy then supposedly was more and more involved in the use of narcotics and was getting careless. He was borrowing money from friends, like....he would say.....I know where your kid goes to school, I'd like to borrow $5000. dollars. And the friend being pretty smart would say, sure, be glad to loan you $5000. dollars. Anyway, he was extorting money from just about everybody. So he received a call one afternoon to meet supposedly a friend, obviously he wouldn't go if it was someone he didn't know. His car was found on what was then the Buddies parking lot, at North Main and I believe it's Long Ave or 33rd street. This was in late August, but there was no Tincy. You know how hot it gets here in August? And for 6 days, Tincy was missing, he was in a well out by Azle. Now a friend of mine, who was a school nurse, her husband was a Deputy Sheriff and it was his duty to identify the remains when they got a tip that Tincy might be in this well.
So they go out and bring up what is left, and the Deputy has to finger print him and identify him in that way. Well, Donna had fixed her husband's favorite meal for dinner that night, it was baked chicken. Golden brown, so tender it was falling off the bone. And you know, she said he took one look at that chicken and got up from the table and said I don't think I'm hungry afterall. (Several folks chuckle) So that's what finally happened to Tincy Eggleston.

Well, there were some really plush gambling places, but I was too young to go to any of these places. And then when I got old enough, I didn't have enough money. So I really haven't been to any of these places, but perhaps you have.
I talked with Pat Kirkwood at length. His father had the 2222 Club, the Four Deuces, up on the Jacksboro Highway. At one time that was a very plush club, I mean we're talking about places that would rival country clubs. At that time it was legal to have gambling in your home, so W.C. 'Pappy' Kirkwood, lived on the premises and therefore he could have gambling there. Pat Kirkwood (Pappy's son) told me there would be times when as much as $100,000. or $200,000. dollars could change hands in one night. That's a lot of money, it seems to me. But again, wealthy, West Texas oil men would come and gamble there. So there were a lot of tales about the Four Deuces. Pat Kirkwood said that he used to sit upon the roof of the place and watch the Jacksboro Highway, and if it was a 6 or 8 ambulance night, he knew that things were really jumping. If there were only 2 or 3 ambulances, he knew it was a slower night.

There was another gambling place that was on Division Street in Arlington, it was called The Top Of the Hill Terrace. It was operated by Fred Browning, it too was a very plush place and high rollers were there.
Now Amon Carter again was the No. One cheerleader for Fort Worth, he was the publisher of the Star Telegram and he would not allow anything derogatory about the 'Movers and Shakers' in Fort Worth to be published. But a retired reporter for the Star Telegram told me this story; It seems that the Top of the Hill Terrace, if you can sort of visualize it, was obviously up on a hill, up here you go in where there were 2 guard houses. By the way on page 87, of the Gamblers and Gangsters book, that's the car I drove to College in 1955. We still have it, my husband shows it in car shows. But that is the entrance to the Top of the Hill Terrace place. There were 2 armed guards there.
The Top of the Hill Terrace was up on top and then the gambling was on the lower floor and there was a small tunnel going out on the bottom part of the hill that you could get out from the gambling room out to the parking area and get away, in case the Texas Rangers raided. Now I'll tell you about the local raiding shortly, but at one time the Texas Rangers did raid the place.
One of Fort Worth's 'Movers' and 'Shakers', and I promised not to reveal the name, but you would recognize it, was gambling there and it just so happened, he had a broken leg and his leg was in a cast. And somehow or another he got that cast stuck in the tunnel, so everybody behind him got arrested, everybody ahead of him got away. ( everyone in room chuckles) The moral of that story is....do not go gambling with someone if they have their leg in a cast.
There's an interesting thing about this picture, I wanted the picture of the "53" Chevrolet because that was the car of the period. After Fred Browning sold the place, he was indicted and then he was in poor health and gambling was pretty much shut down, and he just mostly went out of business. And he sold it and it became the Arlington Country Club. Then the Arlington Country Club sold it and it is now a Bible College. (Whole room laughs) I had a picture of the entrance to the Club and next to the guard house, there's this big logo, sign, saying Arlington Bible College. But I wanted to use this picture, I had permission to use the other one. Well, I called the public relations person at the college and quite frankly, I thought I was getting the run around. I mean, either he was in a meeting, he'd call me back and he didn't or he wasn't in the office that day and he'd call me back and he didn't, so and so forth. So after a week or so of this, I was on my to the UTA library and stopped by and I said who I was and I wanted to see this man. Do you have an appointment? No, well he's in a meeting, that's ok, I said let me show you something, I have permission to use this picture with your logo in my book, Gamblers and Gangsters. I would rather use this picture of this car but I need permission. Well do you know, 2 days later in the mail I received the written permission to use the one with the car instead of the one with the logo. (Mrs Arnold laughed) So that was another interesting gambling place.

Now I realize the Police Department is very near and we have some representatives here, and I love policemen, believe me! I love policemen! But I have to say that in the 50's, unfortunately, some of the upper level of our law enforcement was not really the best. In fact the Fort Worth Police Chief, it seems that he was a good friend of Nelson Harris. And Nelson Harris's little black book had the Chief's name and some dollar figures next to his name. Well they decided that maybe they needed a new Chief, so the Chief at that time became head of the motor pool.
The Sheriff at that time, was Sully Montgomery. Now Sully was a good old boy, Sully was a former Golden Gloves boxer and he was a former professional football player and like one of our Presidents, he might have played without his helmet. (the whole room cracks up laughing) He was not the brightest star in the heaven, but he was a good old boy. And Sully had what was called The Little Green Bag. It was like a pillowcase and when he confiscated money for whatever reason, he'd put it in the little green bag, then put it in the safe in his office. And some woman would come in, you know, that her husband had left her and she didn't have any money, the kids didn't have any good clothes or shoes and everything and he would pull out the green bag and say, "Take what you need."
But Sully was indicted for income tax evasion, it seems that he was spending about 16 thousand dollars a year and his salary was about 10 thousand a year. At the first trial, which was held in federal court in Dallas, he was convicted of income tax evasion. But his lawyers appealed. Carl Freund told me that he called Sheriff Montgomery and said, "Sheriff, it just came over the wire that your case has been remanded." Now to Sully, remanded meant that he was supposed to put somebody in jail, that somebody was remanded to his custody. And Carl Freund expected whoops of joy and there was this deadly silence. And Sully said, "What'd you say?" And Carl said, "Your case has been remanded." And Sully said, "Does that mean I have to go jail now?"
On the appeal, Sully won his case he did not have to go to jail, but he had resigned as Sheriff, and his political power was gone.

So here the Chief of Police is gone and the Sheriff is gone and that leaves the District Attorney, who was Stewart Hellman. Stewart Hellman was voted out of office but there's some interesting stories about him. One of the men that I talked to who operated a club......and this was interesting...when I interviewed these people, I got permission you know, to use the tape recorder, and I put the recorder right there on the table, and I would ask various questions. So here's the tape recorder running and everything and he starts off,
"Well hell yeah I had to pay the D. A. 5 hundred dollars a month to operate!" (chuckles from room)
And after the indictments.....oh let me preface this, the witnesses would not talk in front of Stewart Hellman. So John Honts came in as the Special Prosecutor to serve the county, in that capacity. And Ray Finney was the Grand Jury Foreman. Ray Finney and John Honts were determined that this would not be a white wash Grand Jury as had been in the past. So Stewart Hellman was almost literally thrown out of his own Grand Jury room.
But at any rate the indictments came down and they were to go to trial, but this club owner said he went to see Hellman, and he said, "You know I told you, if I go down, you go down." And you know the District Attorney found a technical flaw, and all the indictments were quashed, in other words, they were all thrown out of court, so none of them were tried. Stewart Hellman was not reelected, so here we have the 3 leading
law enforcement officers of the city and the county, in various ways were either demoted or no longer in office.

The new District Attorney was Howard Fender who came in riding a white horse, and he was going to clean up everything but there were a lot of leaks in the Police and Sheriff Departments. Pat Kirkwood told me that they always knew when there was going to be a raid.
In fact there was a man whose father had a cafe in River Oaks and he said that when he was about 15 years old, he was in his father's business one time, and his father got a call. He was told in about an hour, 2 men would come in and they would just look around, don't worry about it, but put all slot machines away. He did so, and he said sure enough within an hour these 2 detectives came in and looked around and they didn't see a thing. So they reported back that there's no gambling going on, and as soon as they left, the machines were put back out, and it was business as usual.
But anyway, Howard Fender was going to do things differently. He had the Texas Rangers and his own investigators, and people that he could trust. So they met in his office and they synchronized their watches and they were going to raid the Sportmen's Club. The Sportmen's Club was out on the South side, it was drizzly rain, and these 6 men leave the D.A.'s office and they walk by the radio dispatcher's office in the court house. And the radio dispatcher thought, "Hummm, I wonder what's up?" Here these 6 people are leaving the D.A.'s office, so the word gets out. Anyway....so they get out there and half the team goes in the back door and half the team goes in the front door, and all they found were old guys in business suits, playing pingpong! (the room laughs) And that came to be known as,
"Fender's Fizzle in the Drizzle". (everyone really laughs)
Carl Freund said that he complained to Sully Montgomery one time, he said, "Why don't you ever raid early in the morning so us guys on the afternoon paper will get the scoop, cause the morning Star Telegram boys, they always get it. " And Sully said, "Well why? I'm gonna raid at 11:20 tonight, at the 3939 Club up on the Jacksboro Highway and you can be there if you want to, then we can all go home and go to bed. So that's how secretive these raids were.

If you were not involved in the entertainment industry on the Jacksboro Highway or if you didn't work for some of these clubs, you would rarely ever meet any of these gangsters. But by the late 50's they had pretty well killed each other off. And in a period of time from 1940 to 1960 there were 16 gangland slayings....and not one of them were ever solved. But again, the impression was, they really didn't try to solve them, it was.....just let them kill each other off and we'll be done with it. It had pretty well come to an end by that time.

I tried to interview one of the coin machine company owners who had slot machines. Because In 1956 the state legislature outlawed slot machines. You could not own, sell or transport a slot machine out of the state. Well, there were thousands of slot machines in the area and I really just wanted to know what happened to them.
But this man had served time in prison for income tax evasion, which incidently was about the only way that any of these served any time. He was still bitter over that, and he thought I was wanting him to snitch. And I just really wanted to know "What did you do with your slot machines?" But he was not very willing to talk with me, so we don't know.....they may be at the bottom of Lake Worth. I suspect a lot of them are in Las Vegas. Because Las Vegas was just beginning to bloom at this time.
Bert Wakefield who had the 3939 Club on the Jacksboro Highway went to Las Vegas and worked with Benny Binion there. And a lot of the lesser ones, the dealers etc went to Las Vegas also, so I think when gambling pretty much shut down in Fort Worth, many of them went there. And so it was......it was a colorful period of our history.

But there were a lot of other things going on at that time. For example, on the Jacksboro Highway, the entertainment industry was one where you could go dancing at some very nice places.
The Skyliner Club when it opened, George Campbell was the owner and he had very good acts. All of the Big Bands played at the Casino Ballroom at Casino Beach on Lake Worth. So there were a lot of things going on, on the Jacksboro Highway that really had nothing to do with the gambling and gangland killings. And there was a dicodomy, it was almost as if we are over here and the criminal element is over there and we just didn't mix. Our lives were not in danger, that's when I say "our", meaning, the most of the population. You know, we went to school and to work, went to church and except for reading about these events in the newspaper, because this was pretty much "pre-television" or maybe if some of you were rich, you might have had a television set with a small little 10 inch screen......you remember black and white? Most mostly we read about it in the newspaper and we sorta said "tisk-tisk" but it really doesn't involve us.

The Police Department, the Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's Office were all cleaned up, and so we went then into a whole other era.
But it certainly was a colorful period of time, and that leads me to this comment: If I hadn't written this book, hopefully somebody else would. But this material may have been lost forever because I was talking to club owners who were up in their 80's. One afternoon, two of the club owners came over to my house and I set the tape recorder there on the coffee table in the den and listened to them reminisce about this time, and that was a fascinating thing to do and hear. But even the children of these people are in their 60's, so what I'm saying none of us were getting any younger.
I interviewed Police Chief R.R. Howerton, he was 93 years old when I talked with him for this book, and Chief Howerton has since died.

There's a telephone booth or, rather was a telephone booth out on the Jacksboro Highway by what used to be Chenaults, you remember Chenaults? It's Vivian Courtney's now, but is still of the Chenault family. But I took a picture of this telephone booth that was instrumental in one of these bombings. And then a few weeks later I drove down Jacksboro Highway and the telephone booth was gone, it had been replaced by a more modern one. So what I'm saying is.....if we don't
get our history down, it will be lost forever. I urge each one of you to write your family history. Now you may not want it published! (the whole room laughs) But listen......how else will your children and your grand children know that you had to walk 3 miles, uphill, (room begins to
chuckle then really laughs) through the snow, uphill both ways, to go... Shirley Bloomfield says, "Barefoot." Mrs Arnold says,......yes...ha! Barefoot, to go to school.
Seriously, many of us remember World War II, and our children and grand children have no notion of what it was like to go to the movies if you could bring in a piece of scrap iron, or having to use those little red ration stamps. So, please......I'm very serious, video tape, audio tape or write your family history for your children. Hopefully, it will not have some of the events from this book ! But nevertheless it will be of interest.

And again...I thank you so much. I will entertain questions if we have a few minutes and if anyone has a question.

Question was asked: "I know the Four Deuces Club's been torn down, the Rocket Club is a muffler shop now, where was the 3939 Club, is it still standing? "
Ann Arnold answers, The 3939 Club was way up off the highway and very secretive. It has two guard houses and I was not able to get up there and see what it is now, so I don't know if it's still standing, I think it is.
Question was asked: "What about the house that was blown up, here on Robert's Cut-Off ?

Ann Arnold answers, Ok, that was Frank Cates, and that was the one that involved the telephone booth. What happened, Frank Cates had rented a place out on Robert's Cut-Off for gambling. And again, some would squabble over territory or over division of loot. When he went into the house, there was somebody at this telephone booth, and there is a picture of it right here, in the book on page 120. Someone in this telephone booth got a signal from somebody else, that Frank Cates had gone into the house. The person in the booth telephoned Frank Cates. The telephone rang, he picked it up, answered it and BOOM! And the house was blown up so bad that even the plumbing fixtures were blown off the walls. You would think that, that would be enough to kill him but it really wasn't. Now he looked like a pin cushion, he had splinters all in his legs and body, he was badly injured. It didn't kill him, but yes, that was that particular house bombing. A few months later, Frank Cates was still wearing bandages from that bombing, when he was shot and killed by someone else.
Question was asked by Dick Pipkin: "Where was this bombing in your first story?"
Mrs Arnold Answers, On Wingate Street. He said,"Off University Drive?" She said yes. He says, "I heard that explosion, I was working at Swifts at the time. And a day or two later, I was working here in River Oaks as a fire and police dispatcher at night, and I went over to Wolf Garage and saw that car. The only thing left of the motor was the crank shaft. Evidently they poured Nitroglycerine into the engine someway. And it blew the top (roof) of the car back (peeled back as if opened by a can opener), and the seat was laying down where it blew him and it was laid flat. "
Mrs Arnold said, Yes, it almost blew him totally imbedded into the back of the seat. You know Tincy Eggleston was believed to have been the one who planted that bomb. Tincy was living out on some acreage South of Burleson at the time. Now he reported that his car had been tampered with and bomb experts from Carswell Air Force Base went out and sure enough, there was a bomb and it was detonated. So Tincy said, you know someone's killed my friend Nelson Harris and they've tried to kill me. Then Mrs Arnold said, I talked to someone who had worked for Tincy Eggleston, and he said he had been out to Eggleston's house, and that Eggleston had dogs, that there was no way
that anyone could have tampered with that car that Eggleston didn't know it. So there's 2 theories, one of them is that Eggleston put the bomb in his own car to draw attention away from himself.

A man spoke up and said; "Having known some of the police officers in the era that you're speaking of, a number of the gangsters that you're talking about some 15 or 16, all they had to do was call them (police) by telephone and say I need to talk to you and they (gangsters) would come in. That's why the general population was not in danger. They could make the deals with those fellows (gangsters). And some of the new young punks that were running around, they didn't know what they were going to do."
Mrs Arnold answered: And that brings to mind a point that Carl Freund said. He was talking to Tincy Eggleston and Tincy said If you ever get robbed you better hope it's by a pro like me and not some young, punk that's trigger happy and will kill you. Why should I cause all that
heat....now if somebody had a contract out on you, that's different.
Dick Pipkin says: "There was one of those men that lived here in River Oaks, Lon Holley."
Mrs Arnold answered: Yes, Lon Holley was one of the earlier ones.
Mr Pipkin continued: "It was told he left a note at his house of who he was going to see and the next thing they know...he's dead up at Inspiration Point. And they didn't do anything about it ."
Another man spoke up and said: "I just wanted to verify what you were saying about Sully Montgomery and notification of the 2222 Club. My dad was chef there. Lots of times they would come and telephone and tell them that this day the place was going to be raided, and the guy would identify himself and my father would answer the phone sometimes. And by the time the police got there, the Sheriffs and all of them, everything was turned over, the roulett tables were underneath and the slot machines were turned into the wall."
Mrs Arnold agrees and said, Yes it was just really uncanny how in just a matter of minutes they could convert everything into what looked like a cocktail party, or something like that. Everything could be put into false walls or false floors.
The same man continues: " In addition to that, (he said a name I couldn't make out on the tape) had the Ringside Club out on Jacksboro Highway.
Mrs Arnold said, Another interesting one. The man agrees, "Yes it was." Then he said something about the back porch of the club being blown off.
Mrs Arnold said, Yes, the Ringside Club was blown up 2 or 3 times.

Then she says, I do emphasize that the policeman on the beat, the traffic cop, they were doing a good job. It was just the detectives, mostly in the vice-department, or some of the higher levels ones, that were being paid off and gave all of them a black eye. But I'll have to say this, the City Council did not do a whole lot to curtail this because again, they wanted Fort Worth to be an open city, so that people would come and spend their money here.

Linda Claridge says, "I understand that on page 19, that Lanzarotti had a cafe in River Oaks? And they played poker upstairs? Where was it?"
Mrs Arnold says. I'll have to ask Louie (son), because he just said it was in River Oaks.
A lady says, "Dr Arnold?, That man was George Wilderspin,(spelling?) he used to come to our office and get change, but he was always so nice."
Mrs Arnold says, George Wilderspin is a crusty old fella and he is so interesting. He had the East Side Club, but he mostly was a cattleman, and he was also Benny Binions body guard. But he's going to be inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. And like I say he has led a colorful life but primarily he is a cattleman.
Dub Ray mentioned Gene Paul Norris and Mrs Arnold said he was another interesting character.
Nell Dahl asked, "I really have a question to the Honts family, what's happened to the property down there off Ohio Garden Road? Is that still in the family?"
One of the Hont family members (young woman) spoke up and said as far as she knows, her Aunt still owns it. A male member of the family said Mary Beth and her husband live there right now.
Linda Claridge spoke up, "I want to ask the Honts family something too. Your dad was....?" The family said, "Bryan, the son." The young woman of the Honts family says, "My Grandad was John." Then Linda continues, "What was he going through at the time that his father John was doing this difficult case?" One of the Honts men said, "He was playing golf down in Texas." The family members laugh. Linda says, "I mean how did this affect his life?" The young woman says,
"I remember our father (Bryan Honts) talking about, as a child, they couldn't stay in any room with windows, there were death threats, there were gun shots through windows and so they were not allowed to be in front of windows or to sleep in any room that had windows, during that time. Because my grandfather (John Honts) was being gunned after."
One of the Honts men said, "And the agents wanted to escort him (Bryan Honts, their dad) to school and he just wouldn't have it, so they would send the agents to inspect John's partner's car for bombs every morning, so he could take the kids to school."
Ann Arnold says, it would be your Aunt then that said they were not allowed to play in the front yard.

Nell Dahl says, "I can't get it straight in my mind, but Coy Hart's property up there on the hill off Jacksboro Highway, it was the Chateau Club, what was it before it was the Chateau Club? Does anybody remember?" Someone says, "Is that 3939?" Someone else says, "No it's 5600." A lady says, "And you know Ray Finney was Mrs Irma Marsh's brother in law." Ann Arnold says, No I didn't know that. The lady continues, "And his son Dave, who is an attorney in Fort Worth, lives out here in River Oaks in Mrs Marsh's home."
Linda Claridge says, "And Bill McGee, Judge McGee's son, is an attorney now and Judge McGee had a big part is all this, and we have a park named after him." And he lived on McGee Street, also named after him, someone else said. Another lady says, "Actually I just wanted to say that I worked at Corporation Court in 1950 to 1955 and I remember a lot of these warrants and charges coming through our office.
One other lady says, "I live on Skyline Drive and one day an older man came up to our back yard in the back, and so my husband walked out to him and said Did you lose something out here? And the man said I just kinda want to look around a little bit. I used to gamble in this house, and I used to put the money outside, and I just wondered if you all ever found any money. (Everyone cracks up laughing.) I never got back he said. Then I said, Well we've never found anything but if we find any money or anything . . . . . . .

Then Ann Arnold says she will be glad to autograph any books that folks have brought and she has a few to sell if anyone wants to buy one. And then she says, Again, Thank you very much for this opportunity to share with you.
She gets a real nice round of applause and almost everyone seems to line up to get an autograph, or share something with her or purchase books.