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Happy 4th Of July.
May 12, 1950 was the 1st Illinois State police raid on illegal casinos in 10 years. Ezra Brantley was on that raid. Five years later Captain Brantley and his raiders wrecked havoc on the Illinois illegal casinos 1955-1960. Today we will take a look at the 200 Club also at times called the Annex in Madison, Il. I feel very fortunate to have many of the actual chips confiscated in the raids in my collection.
Special "Thank You" to our "Friend Of the Hobby" on this one.
Enough of that:
This is the fifth 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 5
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.
Actual chip taken in raid on The 200 Club/The Annex. This chip would have been taken in the first state police raid in 10 years, before Brantley became Captain In Command.
Here’s some stuff on the 200 T-mold chip which you said was part of the Illinois trooper’s cache. It’s sort of a companion chip to the JPC T-mold which was the subject of an IOTD Illinois 9, last year:
The JPC and the 200 T-molds were used around the same time in two different places run by different people in Madison County, but both places were almost always mentioned in the same breath and both share the same fate.
200—T mold
The 200 chips were delivered in 1947 to Charles M. Davis, a well known gambling operator on the Illinois side of the St. Louis metropolitan area. In the early 1940’s Davis was running a place in the city of Madsion called the 205 Club, located at 205 Madison Ave. Very late in the evening of April 8th 1945 the fresh corpse of a St. Louis man was found at the bottom of a outdoor basement stairwell next door to the 205 Club. An investigation revealed that the man, who’s skull was fractured, had been gambling earlier in the evening at the 205 Club where he reportedly was beaten and tossed from the place. The dead man’s body never resulted in any charges but the stink of it resulted in the closing of the 205 before the summer of 1945.
A few months after the closing, Davis, with partners Harry Wrest and Robert Leu, opened a place around the corner from the 205 Club at 200 State Street and called it the 200 Club or sometimes the 200 Club Annex. It was here a few years later that the 200 T-molds were shipped to Davis. Here’s a current street view:
During the late 1940’s the 200 Club in Madison and the Hyde Park Club in Venice were the biggest gambling operations in Madison County, both places machines making dollars by the millions (the Chicago Tribune claimed at the time that the Hyde Park Club was “one of the largest gambling houses in the USA”). While Davis was operating the 200 Club he was sued numerous times by people who had played there and lost.
Here’s one example from Feb.1949; it gives a nice description of what was going on in the place:
My note: I am always amazed at these types of lawsuits. They still happen today in legal casinos. You gambled-you lost. Live with it dummy!!!! 
By the summer of 1949 Davis appears to have sold his interest in the 200 to his associate Harry Wrest. During that summer the heat began pouring in upon the gamblers of Madison County. Several Madison County newspapers continually lamented the wide open gambling there. In August an editor who had been particularly vocal about the 200 Club was threatened over the phone. This incident, along with other factors, led to the temporary closing of the club by the sheriff.
My note: This type of threat to a newspaper is a terrible move and always back fires.
The work of editor Townsend and another small Madison County newspaper editor, Paul Simon, was praised by their big brother on the other side of the Mississippi, the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Simon, who was only 20 at the time, would go on to become a US Senator from Illinois and make an unsuccessful bid to be the Democrat Party candidate for President in 1988 (he lost to Dukakis; Simon was the horn-rim glasses and bow-tie wearing candidate—his activities against gambling in Madison County launched his career).
My note: One more time we see a future presidential candidate involved with either closing or keeping illegal joints open.*vbg*
“...intervention of the long, strong arm of Springfield” of course meant this guy:
My note: One more time we see a future presidential candidate involved with either closing or keeping illegal joints open. Two different in the same story,*vbg*
On May 12th 1950 the “strong arm” was put in motion when Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson ordered the state police to raid both the 200 Club and the Hyde Park Club. It was reported that this was the first time state police had been used in gambling raids in over a decade and the move made headlines:
here’s the full story from the paper:
My note: Looks like the troopers made a big mess in the 200 Club. This article was in Captain Brantley's files.
Neither place reopened after the raids. The “van loads” of gambling equipment taken in the raids would be destroyed two years later:
(fortunately some chips from both places managed to escape the inferno)
Ten years after the raid politicians were still making hay out of the 200 Club and Hyde Park Club. Here’s a political ad from 1960:
My note. "Honest Government" There is one of the most dishonest ads I have ever seen. Many of the Illinois illegals were still running in 1960.
From Captain Brantley's notes 1955-1960.
About 2/3rds down.
"search warrants almost impossible to obtain as the "State's Attorney's" were usually paid off by the gamblers."
Could the candidate for State Attorney that ran the above ad be warning the operators to pay up or suffer the same results as the joints depicted in the ad? Just wondering!
Stay tuned. Still more from Captain Brantley's files on the Illinois illegal casino raids to come. What I call the "Era Of The Illegals" comes to an end in 1961. One year after Captain Brantley left the Illinois State Police. Bobby Kennedy finished them off in late 1961 when he forced the closure of Newport, KY illegals after close to a 100 year run. River pirates and bootleggers had started illegal gambling in Newport in the last half of the 1800's.
Do you have any illegal casino chips in your collection? If not, IMO you are missing out on one of the best parts of our hobby. Little pieces of clay and history.
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