Hopefully the boys are back safely from The Great Lakes chip show. I also hope everyone picked up some of the chips on their want lists. I wanted to attend but felt $450 was just too much for a plane ticket.

I mentioned before that many illegal operators used Fraternal Organizations to front their gaming activities.

This is the first time I ever heard of the “Order of Otters.” In this case the “Otters” actually met in the same building as The Empire Bar, convenient.

Looks like the Terrell boys wound up in Reno.

Enough of that:

Texas:

GE Terrell
C/O Empire Bar
Pampa, TX
OPT believed to stand for Otters Pampa Texas.

George Edmond Terrell, a native of Illinois, moved to Pampa in the early 1930's via Oklahoma and died 1949 age 65 in Reno, Nevada (moved there in 1947).

The Empire Bar was located at 113 South Cuyler (Empire Liquor also at the address and the Empire Cafe at 115 South Cuyler). At 113 1/2 was a "burrow" of the Order of Otters, a social, professional and business fraternal society. It was organized at Pampa around the same time the chips were ordered.

George's brother Warren operated the Otter's clubroom when the chips were ordered (his brother-in-law Si Denham operated the place in the late 30's). The place, which had a lounge and billiard tables, was raided in Nov.1935 and several tables, cards and chips were seized. I think the OPT could be for Otters Pampa Texas.

In the early 1940's George Terrell managed a place in Pampa called the Silver Moon Club and when he died in Reno in '47 he was working at a downtown club--don't know which one. His brother Warren also moved to Reno where he died in 1957; at the time of his death he was described as a retired faro dealer.

Pampa Daily News--13nov1935:

Here's a pic of the building which housed the Empire Bar and the Otters Club. The Empire Bar was on the ground level left and the Otters Club was upstairs, entered through what was then a door in the middle of the building leading to a stairwell (when the chips were ordered, folk singer Woody Guthrie lived a couple of blocks away):

My Note: Is it possible Woody Guthrie played with the chips? Anything is possible.