Huh? “Illegal Of The Day Indiana 7” and it was delivered to Louisville, KY?

You are reading right. Chalk one up for the “Indiana boys” and put one in the loss column for the “Kentucky boys.”

Not sure where I got this one back in 2007, maybe Spragg. I just entered it in my KY files and kind of forgot about it. I think I mentioned in a past post, I was sending all my KY initial chips without a Club name for further research. Some came back without much information but a couple came back as a Jackpot!

FAG – Get your mind out of the gutter. Fred Albert Guthrie. When I got the chip, the name rang a small bell but the only association I could make was with Arlo. When I got the information back from my “Friend Of The Hobby” the name fell in place and I knew the association that should have rang a big bell.

On top of that it associates back to Bernie Shelton and the Shelton gang’s bloody rule of a boot legging empire in 1920’s Illinois and the KKK.

Did you know the repeal of prohibition was the only time an amendment to the Constitution was ever repealed? Do you know the real reason for the repeal? The US government was BROKE (sound familiar?) after the 1929 stock market crash. They needed to tax alcohol to get $ to run the country. The likes of the Shelton/Capone/etc gangs had all the $.

History! You gotta love it if you collect illegal club chips.

Enough of that:

Indiana:

FAG
Fred Albert Guthrie
Municipal Bar
610 W. Court
Jeffersonville, IN
Early 1930’s to the late 1930’s.

Fred Albert Guthrie, a native of southern Illinois, moved to Louisville sometime in the late 1920’s where he died in 1954 age 61 (said to have been found dead in a hotel room, penniless).

Wish we had a date on this one. Although he lived in Louisville, Guthrie was one of the proprietors of the Municipal Bar in Jeffersonville (located at 610 W. Court). He operated the Municipal Bar with his younger brother Harry “Red” Guthrie and fellow southern Illinoisan Conrad William “Jimmy” James from the early 1930’s to the late 1930’s.

Prior to moving to Louisville, Guthrie operated a pool room in Herrin, Illinois during the late 1910’s early 1920’s. In Herrin he was an associate of none other than our old friend Bernie Shelton. Herrin was in Williamson County. From what I’ve seen, Williamson County in the 1920’s was like the wild wild west—bootlegging and gambling gangs versus vigilante groups, killings on the streets in broad daylight, and hits on mayors.

Lot of interesting history online about the trouble in this county in the 1920’s. The bootleggers and the gamblers, led by the Shelton gang and the Charlie Birger gang, seem to have been at war with a vigilante group backed by the KKK and headed by a guy named S. Glenn Young (later the Shelton and Birger gangs were at each other’s throats). ( My note: no big surprise there, gangs usually fell out from time to time over the $)

The article below reprints a letter which was written to Fred Guthrie and sent to him via Bernie Shelton in Herrin. The letter reportedly gives instructions to Fred and his crew to go to Atlanta and kill S. Glenn Young. Young was in Atlanta getting medical attention for injuries he had received from an attempt on his life which had occurred several weeks before in which the Shelton’s took part.

My note. It seems like wherever they were, the Shelton’s and blood went hand in hand. I wonder if we can still get DNA off some of our chips?

Edwardsville Intelligencer—3sept1924 (the Armelia mentioned was Fred’s wife):

When Guthrie was a proprietor of the Municipal Bar, a guy from Chicago named George Maddox tried unsuccessfully to muscle in on the operation. Maddox opened his own place and a gambling rivalry ensued which came to a head when Guthrie's partner Jimmy James and some guys from the Municipal Bar shot-up Maddox’s place and accidently killed a well known local businessman.

Hammond (Indiana) Times—8july1937 (the article seems to suggest that the counterfeiting of Municipal Bar chips helped bring the gambling rivalry to a boiling point):

To be fair, I will present a 2nd side to the above newspaper articles.

I have an email from Jimmy James son. He has written a book about the Municipal Bar and his father’s life and times in Jeffersonville, IN. I have not read it. He does not know anything about the Guthrie brothers being sent to Atlanta to kill S. Glenn Young.

Quote from Jimmy James Son:

“I don’t know anything about Fred being a hitman and going to Atlanta as the article indicates.”

He denies the story about the counterfeiting of Municipal Bar chips. He thinks the Hammond (Indiana) Times made it up as a reason for the shooting.

He also confirms the Shelton gang’s involvement in a war with a Chicago gang that was trying to expand to the south as the Shelton’s were expanding to the north in Illinois.

James’ book is available for sale. Check the book websites.

My note: I have confirmed Red Guthrie wound up working the crap pit at the Fremont in Las Vegas in the 1970’s.