I recently got these from Luke Rapley. I wasn’t sure they were a legal licensed casino or an illegal operation. The Alder Tavern may or may not have had a license. It was raided several times for illegal gambling. Stockman’s was just a name change by the same owner. Looks like Stockman’s had a card room license but was busted number of times for illegal gambling through 1971.
You make the call. Was it legal or illegal?

This research will have to be uploaded as 2 parts due to too many scans for 1 post.

Enough of that:

Oregon:

Stockman’s was located in The Alder Tavern per the Mason hub mold record card.

Located in
Alder Tavern
323 SW Alder
Portland, OR
Hub mold chips delivered in 1947

The Steer logo Sqincir was listed as a stock die per the Portland Card Company records. No record the die belonged to Stockman’s. The chips were found together and below you will see tokens with the same logo. IMO, the SqinCir chip was a Stockman’s chip.

Stockmen’s Club

You mentioned the Alder Tavern. It was located at 323 SW Alder from around 1933 until the late 40’s. Around 1943, a few doors down from Alder Tavern, at 331 SW Alder was a place called the Alder Club Room (a card room). By 1950 both of these addresses were occupied by the Stockmen’s Club—323 a “beer parlor” and 331 a “card room,” both owned by Emil Ramberg (although I’m not sure if he was the owner when the chips were ordered in 1947). Also not sure how long Stockmen’s kept the separate card room address.

In 1950 there were 41 licensed card rooms in Portland—28 on the west side and 13 on the east side (Stockmen’s on the west). On the west side a card room license cost a minimum of $500 (add $50 for every card table in excess of 10); on the east side a license was a minimum $250 (add $50 for every table in excess of 5).

Around 1964, when Stockmen’s was owned by John & Ben Ell, it moved around the corner to 612 SW 4th Avenue where it ran well into the 1970’s (perhaps longer). Neither of the structures which housed the addresses exist today (parking garages).

Here’s a photo showing the south-east corner of Alder & 4th from around 1950. The old location can’t be seen, but it was directly across the street from the back corner of the tall building; the new location was housed in the 2 story building next to the tall building:

The photo below, from 1931, gives a little feel for the location. The point of view is looking west down Alder—the opposite direction from the photo above--taken about where I put the red dot in the photo above (current google street view shows that the old street lamps are still there). If the photographer would have turned to his right, he would have been standing directly across the street from the original Stockmen’s location:

Here’s a poor quality photo of the Stockmen’s Club from 1974 (not sure why 3rd Avenue Smoke Shop is on 4th Avenue):

(all articles below from Oregonian)
Cited for possession of gambling device when 323 SW Alder was the Alder Tavern—24oct1936:

Raid when 331 SW Alder was Alder Card Room (paper gives wrong address)—8sept1947:

Punchboards at Stockmen’s—20june1949:

Pinball machines getting Stockmen’s in trouble—26april1950:

Although a licensed card room, Stockmen’s raided for permitting gambling—8aug1957:

Read on to part 2.