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() I found a mention of James " Jimmy" LaFontaine and gambling on the internet. Here's the web page.....
Here's the part with the mention.................
Suzanne: How has Cottage City changed since you lived here?
George Anderson: Like any other town it has changed in its composition. The Black
people, when I was a boy, lived in North Brentwood. And, of course, walking, they
walked through the town, if they needed to get someplace on the other side. They were
employed in the town for various purposes, I suppose, as their skills and needs required.
Suzanne: What’s different?
George Anderson: The ethnic nature of the town composition is much different now.
But you can’t tell by riding down any of the streets. The town government has not
changed. The officials, of course, have changed many, many times. There was talk a
while back of buying a long strip of houses at the north end of the town, and putting a big
school, a county school, in there. I think it was somebody’s pipe dream. It wouldn’t have
been practical by any means. But it got everybody upset. And the town officials, of
course, some got elected because of it and some didn’t get elected also because of it,
depending on their positions. It would not have benefited the town. The town annexed
property on the south end, on the other side of the creek, which amounted to, I suppose,
1/7th of the area now. It became an industrial park. That was a change. That property
formally belonged to a gambler named Jimmy LaFontaine. He had a casino there and big
green wood fence all the way around. And part of his property was in the District and part
of his casino was in the District, because there was no connecting road to cross his
property, which there is now. It’s called Eastern Avenue, but there was no Eastern
Avenue then. He had a house on the north end of his property. I never saw him there, but
I understand he had a sister that lived there. But he built a house in the District on the
corner of his property. It is no longer there. Neither one of those houses are there
anymore. He had a fleet of limousines that brought gamblers from an intersection or two
in D.C., and when they were finished gambling, it took them back. And if a gambler lost
the grocery money and his wife called Jimmy, Jimmy said, “You can’t come to my place
anymore.” But he put her on the list for Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as any poor
people that he knew of. Thanksgiving and Christmas, all his limousines were busy
carrying baskets to the poor. And the survivor of a poorly spent income, they would still
be poor. But that was what he did. And he had friends. Not everyone liked the idea of
having a gambling casino so close to the town. As far as I could ever see, it was not a
nuisance. He was raided from time to time, but never by the District and Maryland. If he
was raided by Maryland, by the time they got there, all the equipment was moved to the
D.C. end of his casino. And the same way, when D.C. raided. He got wind of it, and all
his equipment would be moved over to the Maryland side. Eventually, I think he just died
of old age. He was famous. There were bookies in Washington. I think there are bookies
in every town.
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