Early 1930's. The beginning of the "Era Of The Illegals."

In the beginning there were "Chips." Almost uncirculated 80 year old chips. They sat through 3 generations in someone's closet just waiting for a chip collector to "Come A Knocking." Kenny Craig was that collector. The Mason records have been a wealth of information giving us starting points to capture a picture of who, why, what, and where the buyers used our little pieces of clay.

Once again the ID did not give us a "Club" name. IMO, from the research it is safe to say it was called The Larch Club at the time the chips were ordered. Might also give us a clue on where the chips were for 80 years. This was a good size operation, BJ, craps, and a race wire. Is it possible The Hokey Pokey was first done at the Larch Club. C'mon, own up! I know everyone has done the Hokey Pokey at least one time in their lives.

I have a couple sets of EHD traders if anyone is interested.

Enough of that:

Ed Degan
616 Larch St.
Dunmore, PA
6/2/33

Enter our "Friend Of The Hobby."

EHD—Edward Henry Degen

The EHD hubs were delivered to Degen at 616 Larch Street in Dunmore, a town which borders Scranton. 616 Larch, located in a two story wooden structure in a predominately residential area, had been the location of a gambling room for several years prior to Degen’s 1933 chip order.

Degen was associated with 616 Larch as early as January 1932 when he was fined and given a suspended jail sentence for running a gambling operation at the address (prior to his association with 616 Larch, Degen ran a gambling operation at a billiard hall called the Twentieth Century Recreation Room.

Four months after paying his fine in January:

April 12, 1932

A year later Degen was running again at 616 Larch; his place was raided by the State Police and he was arrested.

This article about the raid refers to the place as the “Larch Club” which it says offered poker, blackjack, craps and horse betting:

April 10, 1933

Three months later, and a month and a half after the EHD chip order, the place is raided again. 616 Larch is described as the headquarters for the dissemination of race wire information in the Scranton area.

July 21, 1933:

The sheriff never issued a warrant for the proprietor because he said he was not able to identify him, but presumably it was still Degen. Among the several thousand dollars worth of equipment removed from the place were chips, possibly the EHD hubs:

My note: If these were the EHD hubs, they could have sat in a police evidence locker for many years until they decided to sell them in one of their public sales. As we have seen in past IOTD stories, sometimes one of the raiding policemen often took some of the confiscated chips. Many times they sit in a raiders closet until the person dies and his heirs take them to ebay. In this case the ebay seller had no info on the chips. More than likely they came from an estate sale after several generations.

616 Larch continued to operate off and on as a gambling house until early 1935 when the property was purchased by the Scranton Electric Company which razed the building and several around it when it constructed a service center at the location.

Current aerial—Scranton Electric Company building still stands; red X marks the spot where the gambling house at 616 Larch once stood:

Degen may or may not have been associated with 616 Larch after 1933. By 1934, and for several subsequent years, he was one of the leaders of a gambling syndicate which moved a big gambling room from one downtown Scranton location to another. One of the locations was in the 200 block of Wyoming and was described at the time as being “the largest and most completely equipped gambling house that this city has ever known.” By June 1934 this operation had moved to 326 Lackawanna and was known as the Ritz Club. By late 1935 the operation had moved to the Mozart Pool Hall at 120 Penn Avenue where it ran until mid-1936 when it moved again......and so on. All of these places were raided at one time or another. If Degen managed to keep his EHD hubs out of the hands of raiding law enforcement, then presumably they could have been used at any of these locations.

In late 1936 Degen was operating in the 200 block of Penn Avenue when his place was hijacked and he lost more than just his money:

September 31, 1936

My note: Once again the robbers took their victims pants. We have seen this before. Kind of popular in the robbing of illegal casino's.

Al Degen was working as a stick man for his brother when Schwartz questioned Degen’s operation of the dice table and took a swing at Al. Schwartz was jumped, gagged and dragged into a private office.....)

Degen left Scranton in the mid 1940’s and moved to Kentucky where he died in 1975 at the age of 76.

My note: Degan spent 30 or so years in Kentucky. I'm betting he kept at what he knew best. Any of you KY boys ever heard of him?

a final note, not chip related--

Degen had several brothers. At least one, Al, worked as a stick man at one of Degen’s downtown gambling rooms. Another brother, Robert, was a musician who played in several popular bands in the Scranton area. Robert Degen’s claim to fame is that he had a hand in the creation of the song “Hokey Pokey” --or of the version of the song that most of us are familiar with (he got royalties checks from it). Robert died in Lexington, Kentucky in 2009 at the age of 104 (he had moved to Kentucky in the 1970’s, where his brother Eddie was living).

Degen’s 2009 death notice and story about the Hokey Pokey from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/arts/music/03degen.html?_r=0

In 1933, when his brother Eddie was running an illegal gambling room at 616 Larch, the guy who helped author the Hokey Pokey was actually in the pokey:

When Degen plead guilty to misdemeanor possession, the felony selling charge was dropped and he was sentenced to 1 year in jail.

“Police Heads” inspecting Degen’s locoweed cache (the guy seated left almost looks like he has an “illegal smile”):

My notes: I agree the cop on the left looks like he tried a "Toke" of the seized stash.

Three more new illegal clubs, Larch Club, Ritz Club, and Mozart Pool Hall are identified for TGT in this "Illegal Of The Day." Seems like new ones are never ending. I've always said the "Era Of The Illegals" was a vast USA wide enterprise. IMO. that claim is proving true. The search continues.

This is "Illegal of The Day" #225.