Captain Brantley and his raiders unlike other local law men and politicians did not play favorites with the Illinois illegal club operators. They took all of them down. Our "Friend Of The Hobby," Ed Hertel, and David Spragg all contributed to this series of posts. Many TGT entries have been changed and/or added due to this series.

Enough of that:

This is the seventh in a series of mid and southern Illinois "illegal Of The Day" posts.
I am calling this series of posts "Raiders Of the Lost Illegal's" in honor of Captain Elza Brantley and the troopers that served with him.

"Raiders Of the Lost Illegal's" Part 7

The grandson of Captain Elza Brantley sent me 150 scans of raid pictures, notes on the raids, newspaper articles, official documents, and confiscated chips from 500 (300 in one month) raids on Illinois illegal's, conducted by his grandfather. Some of the chips we have never seen. Also raids on clubs we have never heard of.

Elza Brantley 1913-1999
Graduated from the first class at the Illinois State Police Academy.
1955-1960 Captain in Command Battery #6 Illinois State Police-District #13 East Saint Louis- 27 counties - 105 Troopers.

Explanation of "500 (300 in one month) raids." Most of these raids consisted of one state trooper in full uniform walking through every room in a club, 3 times a day. It would be hard to start "Dem Bones" rolling with this going on. Today it would be called harassment.

I have been promised a full copy of Captain Brantley notes.

That has not happened to date. This will be the final post in this series until I get them.

We did find chips from the Club Winchester a few months ago I have talked to Bob Winchester son of Shot Winchester the owner. He has the same chips we found. Ed is working on an IOTD for them. Here is a teaser picture Ed found, from it.

Below are a few chips taken in raids by Captain Brantley not previously shown in this series. Only actual chips taken in raids shown.

Club 67 is in TGT as East Cape Girardeau, IL. Captain Brantley's notes says these 3 chips were taken in an Illinois raid but does not list where.

In IOTD 38 posted on 1/25/14, I erroneously said Club 67 was on his list. I had taken that one from TGT and it has been amended. The problem is we can find no history on a Club 67 or 67 Club anywhere in Illinois. The Closest ones we found was in Newport, Arkansas and Waco, TX. All the other Clubs in Brantley's notes are well documented in the search engines we use.

Was Club 67 a gambling room in one of them? Could be. More than likely the 67 chips were imported from other states illegal clubs like the JJJ Mississippi chips (IOTD Illinois 40) and the legal Stateline Country Club chips (IOTD Illinois 39) from NV shown in previous stories from this series.

The CR Skey chip was taken in a raid by Brantley but no club name in his notes. The CR chip is in TGT as Club Royal, East Cape Girardeau, IL. Club Royal was actually in Bellevue, IL 100 miles to the north.

Slim chip was taken by Brantley in a raid on Club Play More in Divernon, IL., 200 miles north of East Cape Girardeau, IL. There are T molds from there, I need them. Cough them up if you have traders.

HK triangle mold was taken in a raid by Brantley but no club name in his notes. It has been in TGT as East Cape Girardeau, IL for sometime without a Club name.

The H dots mold was taken in a raid on The Hyde Park Club in Venice, IL. I have many chips from there but this was a new one for me. The Hyde Park Club was featured in IOTD Illinois 9 on 1/9/11. The H dots mold has been in TGT as East Cape Girardeau, IL but actually it was in Venice.

Do we want to call this a "Jetton" or a plastic chip? Either way, there is no doubt where it was used.

There were many/many other Illinois illegal club chips in the Captains files he took in raids. I only obtained the ones I did not already have. All the ones I obtained have now been shown in this series.

Over a span of 30 years of illegal gambling in Illinois there were 100's of raids on the 100's of illegal joints. Brantley's raiders were not the only ones closing these clubs. Many of the operators moved on to other clubs after the raids. It was only natural that the chips migrated with the operators.

I would hope you have enjoyed reading the "Raiders Of the Lost Illegal's" series as much as I did putting it all together. A lot of history and a lot of fun.