This is going to take awhile. If you are not an avid collector of Illinois illegals you probably won’t wade through it. This post chronicles 8 years of various city/county and state officials including a future presidential candidate, saying they closed the joint.

This is only a small part of the info available on the joint, that’s out there. I only sent for more info because there was a chip order for 34,000 T mold chips. That equals a BIG BIG BIG illegal operation. As you can see there was also chips delivered from B C Wills on the Skey mold. Geez, I wish we had the BC Wills records.

The gambling boss from E St Louis, Buster Wortman was involved with the Hyde Park Club. He was a silent partner in the Hyde Park Club. He has been featured in several other “Illegal Of The Day” posts and will return in a future post.

And, once again the Shelton brothers appears in an “illegal Of The Day” post. If it had to do with illegal gambling in southern Illinois, they were involved. You remember them. Poor dirt farmers that ruled a southern Illinois booting legging empire, with a bloody hand. Retired then unretired to rule the illegals of southern Illinois.

The last article in this post tells about the Shelton’s being the cause of a 1930 closure of the Hyde Park Club by threatening the joint for a payoff. Per an article below the joint was grossing 6.5 million a year.

It also tells us the Shelton’s were convicted bank robbers.
Will wonders never cease?

One of the Hyde Park Club chips is featured in a 1950 Life Magazine story below. It is a 50¢ chip. Anyone out there have one of them?

Enough of that:

Hyde Park Club
John P. Connor
826 Main St
Venice, IL
1920’s – 50’s

I also have a double stamped grey $1. Thank you Mike Vulvo.

Enter a “Friend of the hobby:

JPC
The Hyde Park Club in Venice had been around for a couple of decades when these chips were ordered.
It was a very well known and patronized club which for many years made hay for political candidates who seemed to be continually trying to plug-up this hole of gushing cash.

One of the proprietors of the club when the chips were ordered was John P. Connor—I assume it’s his initials on the chips. Connor was a native of St. Louis and a son of an Irish born saloon keeper there (Connor was himself a saloon keeper there). Connor died at St. Louis in 1957 age 73; at the time of his death he was a resident of Festus, MO.

The building which housed the address no longer exists. The entire block and street have been obliterated and altered to such a degree that I had to superimpose a snip from an old map onto a current aerial to place its location:

Here’s a snip from a 1942 political ad; a former sheriff running for treasurer lists his accomplishments:

Here is a chip order from 1943 after Sheriff Wittman claims he closed it.

I NEED ONE OF THESE! Cough it up if you have a trader.

Three years later in 1945 a newspaper editorializes about the accomplishments of the State’s Attorney:

OOPS!!!!!!!!!!
A few months later over 34,000 chips were delivered:

In 1947 the Hyde Park Club opened up a second, swankier location a few doors down at 814 Main St.:

J. P. Connor and Hyde Park sued in 1948:

My note: At last! The Guv steps in! I wonder if it was still open when Adlai ran for president?

On May 12, 1950 Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson ordered the Illinois State Police to raid Hyde Park:

A month after the raid, the June 19th issue of Life Magazine printed an article about gambling in the US. On the first page of the article there’s a montage of gambling items Life’s reporters had collected around the country.

One of the items is a JPC chip. The article also features some photos of the Hyde Park raid. One of the pics shows one of the owners: Gregory “Red” Moore. Moore also handled the ownership stake of one of
Hyde Park’s “silent” partners: Frank “Buster” Wortman.

My Note: Now a little trip “Back To The Future.” Or, maybe it’s a “Prequel” since its from 1930.
You remember the Shelton brothers from several previous “Illegal Of The Day” posts.

More from our “Friend of the hobby.” He remembers the Sheltons.

Probably too much stuff already on this place (there’s a lot of info out there on it).
But here’s one more article from 1930 which I had to include--our old friends the Shelton Brothers: