Original Publish Date January 6, 2016. Republished January 23, 2025.
https://weeklyview.net/2016/01/14/the-lyric-theatre-part-1/
This week the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. will open a new exhibit called “Sinatra at 100” honoring Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday last December 12th. The National Museum of American History will surely put up a classy display, but I seriously doubt that our fair city will be mentioned at all… but we should be.
Located at 135 N. Illinois Street there once stood a theatre with as rich a pop-culture history as any in Indianapolis. When the Lyric Theatre opened in February of 1906, it was a room with about 200 folding chairs arranged in rows. A carbon arc light projector rested on a tripod in the rear of the theatre. The film was mounted on a reel and fed at a rate of 16-18 frames per second between the arc light and the projector lens, which magnified the image so that it could be projected onto a screen. Early projectors simply dumped the projected film into a basket on the floor. Projectors were hand-cranked, and the projectionist could speed up or slow down the action on the screen by “over-cranking” or “under-cranking.”
The film stock itself was made from nitrocellulose, a chemical cousin to explosives used by the military in World War I. The highly flammable film and the extremely hot light source meant that fire was a very real threat. In fact, the incidence of projector-related fires over the first ten years of movie houses produced some of the worst tragedies in our country’s history, capable of killing hundreds of people in an instant. For this reason, a larger 1400-seat Lyric theatre was built on the property six years later.
The new Lyric was constructed by the Central Amusement Co. for $75.000, built by the Halstead-Moore Co., and designed by architect Herman L. Bass, who designed Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James A. Allison’s mansion, now on the campus of Marian College. This upgrade included fireproof materials inside and exterior walls of concrete, steel, and artistic brick accented by white terra-cotta trim.
On April 20, 1919, the Lyric was again closed for remodeling, this design courtesy of architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., a well-known name that still resonates through town to this day. This facelift left only three original walls standing and created a new lobby on the south. The stage that originally faced west now faced south. It had its grand reopening on September 1, 1919. The Lyric underwent its last major remodel in 1926, adding state-of-the-art air conditioning and modern stage lighting systems. This remodel cost $185,000 and included construction of a new four-story building featuring a new main entrance, and lobby with executive offices above.
The new Lyric, with its shiny marble and gold lobby lined with French mirrors and six French crystal chandeliers, was considered to be one of the finest theaters in Indiana. 300 more seats were added as was a new basement that housed rehearsal areas and dressing rooms named for cities on its doors. A new marquee was added above the front door. At 10 feet high, 50 feet long, and 16 feet deep, it held up to 440 letters and was said to be the largest of its kind in the state. The following year a new Marr-Colton pipe organ was added for $30,000.00, which, like the marquee, was the largest in the state.
The Lyric began life showing films scored with music provided by live musicians. Then came Vaudeville, talkies, and finally big screen epics similar to today. World War I led to the Roaring Twenties, then to the Great Depression, and into the gangster era whose Hoosier outlaw roots extended to the doorway of the Lyric itself. The Lyric survived the Depression by featuring an eclectic mix of movies, Vaudeville acts, stage shows and live musicals.
A week after the death of Hoosier Public Enemy # 1 John Dillinger on July 22, 1934, his family signed a 5-month vaudeville contract at the Lyric theatre that expired on New Year’s Eve. Crowds mobbed the theatre to hear stories from and ask questions of, John Dillinger, Sr. about his famous outlaw son. The 15-minute show was billed as “Crime doesn’t pay” even though it cost patrons an extra 15 cents to see it. Here, Dillinger Sr. and his sister Audrey fielded questions from the crowd. The show traveled to the Great Lakes, Texas Centennial and San Diego Expositions, and Chicago World’s Fair, which gangster Dillinger had famously visited while alive. Rumor persists that the Lyric was also a favorite hangout for John Dillinger. After all, everyone knows that Dillinger died outside of a Chicago movie theatre.
Edgar Bergen (only weeks before he introduced his “dummy” Charlie McCarthy) played the Lyric in 1934 in a vaudeville act that included a trio of sisters calling themselves the “Queens of Harmony” who later became known as The Andrews Sisters. Red Skelton was a 1930s performer at the Lyric known as “The Canadian Comic” even though he was a Hoosier born in Vincennes. Hoagy Carmichael was a regular. The standard 1930s Era Lyric theatre contract awarded “Fifty percent (50%) of gross receipts after the first dollar”. Ticket prices in 1936 were defined as: “25 cents to 6 p.m.- 40 cents on the lower floor at night and 30 cents in balcony weekdays, and Saturday. On Sunday, 30 cents in balcony and 40 cents on the lower floor all day.”
The Lyric’s next step towards pop culture immortality came on February 2, 1940, when the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra came to town. Dorsey began his career in a Big Band with his brother Jimmy in the late 1920s. That band also included Glenn Miller. Dorsey had a reputation for being a micromanaging perfectionist with a volatile temper. He often fired musicians based on his mood, only to rehire them a short time later. Dorsey had a well-deserved reputation for raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician, or arranger, he thought nothing of taking over their contracts and careers.
In November 1939 a relatively unknown “skinny kid with big ears” from Hoboken New Jersey signed on as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Frank Sinatra signed a contract with Dorsey for $125 a week at Palmer House in Chicago, where Ole Blue Eyes was appearing with the Harry James orchestra. Mysteriously, but not unsurprisingly, Harry James agreed to release Sinatra from his contract. An event that would come back to haunt Dorsey a couple years later.
Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and quickly became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey’s mannerisms and often claimed that he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. He made Dorsey the godfather of his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that “The only two people I’ve ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey”.
From February 2-8, 1940, when the Dorsey band opened at the Lyric, the theater’s ad in the Indianapolis Star listed Tommy’s name in inch-high letters. At the bottom, in 1/8-inch type, was a listing for “Frank Sinatra, Romantic Virtuoso.” The songs he sang during that week of shows on the eve of World War II are lost to the pages of history. But we do know that Frank Sinatra made eighty recordings in 2 years with the Dorsey band.
By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in Billboard and Down Beat magazines, becoming the world’s first “Rock Star”. His appeal to bobby-soxers created “Pop Music” and opened up a whole new market for record companies, which had been marketing primarily to adults up to that time. The phenomenon would become officially known as “Sinatramania”. Manic female fans often wrote Sinatra’s song titles on their clothing, bribed hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and chased the young star often stealing clothing he was wearing, usually his bow tie.
By 1942, Sinatra believed he needed to go solo, with an insatiable desire to compete with Bing Crosby, his childhood idol. Sinatra grew up with a picture of Crosby in his bedroom, and in 1935 young Frankie met his idol briefly backstage at a Newark club. Within a decade, Sinatra would be contending for Crosby’s throne. A series of appearances at New York’s Paramount Theatre in December 1942 established Sinatra as the hot new star. When Sinatra sang, young girls in the audience swooned, screaming so loud that it drowned out the orchestra. The girls never swooned and screamed when Bing Crosby sang. Sinatra decided early not merely to imitate Crosby, but to develop his own style. In a 1965 article, Sinatra explained: “When I started singing in the mid-1930s everybody was trying to copy the Crosby style — the casual kind of raspy sound in the throat. Bing was on top, and a bunch of us … were trying to break in. It occurred to me that maybe the world didn’t need another Crosby. I decided to experiment a little and come up with something different.”
Frank’s singing evoked frailty, innocence, and vulnerability and inflamed the passions of his young female fans. Some older listeners, however, rejected Sinatra’s gentle sighing, moaning, and cooing as not real singing. Crosby joked: “Frank Sinatra is the kind of singer who comes along once in a lifetime — but why did it have to be my lifetime!”
Sinatra was hamstrung by his contract with the Dorsey band, which gave Dorsey 43% of Frank’s lifetime earnings in the entertainment industry. On September 3, 1942, Dorsey famously bid farewell to Sinatra by telling Frankie, “I hope you fall on your ass”. Rumors began spreading in newspapers that Sinatra’s mobster godfather, Willie Moretti, coerced Dorsey to let Sinatra out of his contract for a few thousand dollars by holding a gun to Tommy’s head and telling him that “either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.” Apparently, Sinatra made him an “offer he could not refuse”. Yes, that famous scene in The Godfather is based on this encounter.
Dorsey died in 1956, but not before telling the press this of his one-time protege, “he’s the most fascinating man in the world, but don’t put your hand in the cage”. Regardless of the way it ended between the duo. It all began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis.
If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read “The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters” (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.
The Lyric Theatre. Part II.
Original Publish Date January 21, 2016. Republished January 23, 2025.
https://weeklyview.net/2016/01/21/the-lyric-theatre-part-2/
Frank Sinatra’s career began at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis on February 2, 1940, with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Sinatra stuck with Dorsey for a couple years before he went solo. Allegedly, Dorsey only let go of Frankie at the gentle urging of Ole Blue Eyes’ Mafia Godfather, who was holding a gun to Dorsey’s head. Dorsey and Sinatra, who had once been very close, never patched up their differences. Ironically, Dorsey had a hand in the Lyric Theatre’s second step towards immortality for the next bobby-soxer generation.
On January 28, 1956, another pop culture icon burst onto the American scene via The Dorsey Brothers TV Show. Tommy Dorsey introduced Cleveland disc jockey Bill Randle, who then introduced Elvis Presley to his first national audience by saying: “We’d like at this time to introduce to you a young fellow who…came out of nowhere to be an overnight big star…We think tonight that he’s going to make television history for you. We’d like you to meet him now – Elvis Presley”. That night the show aired from CBS Studio 50. The same studio that launched the careers of the Beatles, who would themselves eventually dethrone Elvis 8 years later. Years later, Indianapolis Native David Letterman would broadcast his Late Nite show from the same studio- yet another Hoosier pop culture connection.
A little more than a month before that national television debut, Elvis Presley played the Lyric theatre for four days: Sunday, December 4th through Wednesday, December 7th. Elvis was paid $ 1,000 for 4 shows. 20-year-old Presley was part of Hank Snow’s tour that played the Lyric, once located in the 100 block of North Illinois Street. Presley, who never received formal music training or learned to read music, studied and played by ear. He also frequented record stores with jukeboxes and listening booths, where he memorized all of Hank Snow’s songs.
Hank Snow was the headliner and his name appeared on the Lyric theatre marquee in giant letters. Snow, a regular at the Grand Ole Opry, persuaded the Opry to allow a young Elvis Presley to appear on stage in 1954. Snow used Presley as his opening act and introduced him to the infamous Colonel Tom Parker. The Opry believed Elvis’ style didn’t fit with their image so they suggested he go the the Louisiana Hayride radio show instead. By the time Elvis came to the Lyric, he was a hayride regular. Seems Elvis’s performance at the Lyric, although one of his first, may have been one of his last without controversy.
In August 1955, Colonel Tom Parker joined Hank Snow’s Attractions management team just as Presley signed his first contract with Snow’s company. Elvis, still a minor, had to have his parents sign the contract on his behalf. Before long, Snow was out and Parker had total control over the rock singer’s career. When Snow asked Parker about the status of their contract with Elvis, Parker told him, “You don’t have any contract with Elvis Presley. Elvis is signed exclusively to the Colonel.” Forty years later, Snow (who died in 1999) stated, “I have worked with several managers over the years and have had respect for them all except one. Tom Parker (he refused to call him the Colonel) was the most egotistical, obnoxious human being I’ve ever had dealings with.”
When Elvis breezed through Indianapolis just before Christmas of 1955, he was young, he was raw, he was pure and he was blonde. Yes, Elvis Presley was a natural blonde. Elvis’s signature jet-black raven hair was actually a dye job courtesy of Miss Clairol 51D and Black Velvet & Mink Brown by Paramount. The future King of Rock ‘n Roll thought that dying his hair black gave him an edgier look. Elvis once confessed to dying his hair with black shoe polish in his earliest days. So who knows? Maybe he was traveling through the Circle City with a can or two of Shinola in his ditty bag back in ’55.
Elvis was accompanied to the Lyric by guitarist Scotty Moore, bass player Bill Black, and drummer D.J. Fontana. The Lyric bill included headliner Hanks Snow, Mother Maybelle, and the Carters and comic Rod Brasfield, for a four-day gig. Black, Moore, and Fontana toured extensively during Presley’s early career. Bill Black played stand-up bass, and his on-stage “clown” persona fueled memorable comedy routines with Presley. Black often performed as an exaggerated hillbilly with blacked-out teeth, straw hat, and overalls. Black’s on-stage personality was a sharp contrast to the introverted, consummate professionalism of veterans Moore and Fontana. The balance fit the group’s Lyric performances perfectly.
The newspaper ads billed Elvis (in very small print face) as “a county and bop singer.” According to a later report in the August 8, 1956, Indianapolis Times, headliner Hank Snow missed the first show (Sunday, December 4th) due to a winter storm. Showing amazing resolve at a very young age, Elvis stood in for his childhood hero and carried on with the supporting acts to perform a seamless show. The original contract called for Elvis to be paid $750 for the four-day engagement, but Elvis was paid an extra $ 250 for saving Snow’s bacon during that first show.
Two weeks later, on December 20th, RCA released Elvis’ four earlier Sun records singles: “That’s All Right”/”Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Good Rockin’ Tonight”/”I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine,” “Milkcow Blues Boogie”/”You’re a Heartbreaker,” and “Baby Let’s Play House”/”I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone.” Now the King was off and running. Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and D.J. would only make one other appearance together in the state of Indiana, in Fort Wayne when they performed at the Allen County Memorial Coliseum on Mar 30, 1957. Elvis’ Lyric Theatre band broke up a year later although Fontana, Moore, and Elvis still played and recorded together regularly throughout the 1960s.
After 1958, Bassist Bill Black never played with the band again; he died of a brain tumor on October 21, 1965, at the age of thirty-nine. Moore and Fontana performed together on a 2002 recording of “That’s All Right (Mama)” with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney who performed on the recording using Black’s original stand-up “slap” bass. McCartney received the instrument as a birthday present from his wife Linda in the late 1970s. In the documentary film “In the World Tonight”, McCartney can be seen playing the bass and singing his version of “Heartbreak Hotel”.
But what about the Lyric in the years before and after Elvis burst onto the scene? Well, we know that Sinatra’s idol Bing Crosby played the Lyric way before Ole Blue Eyes or Elvis ever knew the address. We know that Chuck Berry played the Lyric on October 19, 1955, just after signing with Chess Records and recording the classic “Maybelline”. We also know that the Lyric closed briefly on May 24, 1956, for a summer remodel and reopened on August 29, 1956. With the installation of Norelco 70-35 projectors it could now show 70mm film. Continuing the Lyric’s tradition as a pioneer in theatre sound performance (it was the first theater in the city to show a Stereophonic Sound Film, Fantasia in 1942) it was the first in Indianapolis to feature the Todd-AO sound system. A new screen measured 50 feet by 25 feet. The opening film was “Oklahoma” which lasted for six months.
In the sixties, the Lyric was a part of the Indianapolis Amusement group which also included the Circle and Indiana theaters, still standing at the time. On March 31, 1965, the “Sound of Music” opened at the Lyric and ran until January 17, 1967, the longest run for a motion picture at the Lyric. But the glory days of the Lyric were fading fast. Urban flight and suburban relocation led to multiplexes and the death of golden-age theatres like the Lyric. The theatre that helped to introduce pop icons Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley closed in 1969. “Shoes of the Fisherman” and “Where Eagles Dare” were the last two movies shown there. The magnificent movie house, once touted as Indianapolis’ finest theater, located at 135 North Illinois Street is just a memory today, replaced by a parking garage.
Elvis would return to Indianapolis 22 years later to perform his last concert ever before 17,000 adoring fans on June 26, 1977, at Market Square Arena, which was also demolished. Reviews of the show criticized the performance as a “tacky circus sideshow at which the star was sloppy and lethargic”. Like the Lyric, Elvis became a victim of changing times and more sophisticated attitudes. The King died on August 16, 1977, 51 days after his appearance at MSA and 21 years, 8 months, and 12 days after he first strolled into the Lyric theatre to cover for his idol Hank Snow. [The MSA stage that Elvis resides in now rests inside the Irving Theatre in Irvington.]
As for me, I’d prefer to remember Elvis for his trip through Indy’s eastside a year after he played the Lyric. Sometime in late 1956, Presley was reported to have stopped at the Jones and Maley automotive garage, a stone’s throw from Irvington at 3421 E. Washington St., to have the two front whitewall tires on his baby blue Cadillac balanced. According to mechanics working on the vehicle, Presley’s car had girls’ names scratched into the paint. An urban legend has Elvis driving that same Cadillac car on that same day just up the road to Al Green’s for a snack before heading on to a tour stop in Ohio. That, like the image of the Lyric Theatre’s marquee glowing brightly on a Saturday night, is the image I choose to keep with me of the King in Indianapolis.
If you are interested in learning more about the Lyric and other legendary Circle City theatres, I highly recommend you read “The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters” (IU Press) by Howard Caldwell, former WRTV-Channel 6 anchor and friend of Irvington.
Clyde had an uncanny ability to steal Ford V8 cars and evade the police whenever he was trapped, cornered or surrounded. Clyde claimed that a Ford V8 car could outmaneuver and outrun any police car that attempted to follow him. Additionally, living a life on the run meant that Clyde and Bonnie spent days (or weeks) traveling long distances and sleeping in their car at night. Clyde supposedly preferred Ford V8s because he thought that their bodies were thicker and, thereby, more bullet-resistant. And those famous photos of Bonnie and Clyde mugging, clowning and romancing for the camera, most of them include a Ford V8 in the background.
Clyde Barrow loved the Ford V8 so much that he wrote a letter to Henry Ford in April of 1934 praising the car. Addressed simply to “Mr. Henry Ford Detroit, Mich.” from “Tulsa, Okla. 10th April” the letter, misspellings and all, reads: “Dear Sir:- While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned and even if my business hasen’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8- Yours truly, Clyde Champion Barrow” (Clyde Barrow’s middle name was actually Chestnut. He jokingly listed “Champion” as his middle name when he entered the Texas state prison at Huntsville in 1930.)
Amazingly, after Ford’s secretary failed to recognize the outlaw’s name,a reply was sent on April 18th. The neatly typed letter on the ornate letterhead of the Ford Motor Company reads: “Mr. Clyde Barrow, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dear Sir: On behalf of Mr. Ford, we wish to acknowledge your letter of April 10 and thank you for your comments regarding the Ford car. H.R. Waddell, Secretary’s Office.” Six weeks later, Bonnie and Clyde were dead. A debate rages to this day as to whether the letter is authentic or not. Regardless, it is a priceless piece of Americana that can often be found on public display at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn. When Dillinger was asked about Bonnie & Clyde after his capture and incarceration at Crown Point, he responded, “Bonnie & Clyde? Huh, a couple a punks.”
Ironically, a month later, Henry Ford would receive another letter. In May of 1934, a letter arrived from the most famous gangster in the world: John Dillinger. Like the previous letter, this one features the official stamp of the Henry Ford office, dated May 17, 1934. The letter is postmarked from Detroit and, like the Bonnie & Clyde letter, is entirely handwritten. It reads: “Hello Old Pal. Arrived here at 10:00 AM today. Would like to drop in and see you. You have a wonderful car. Been driving it for three weeks. It’s a treat to drive one. Your slogan should be, Drive a Ford and watch the other cars fall behind you. I can make any other car take a Ford’s dust! Bye-Bye, John Dillinger”. The Dillinger gang had just held up the Citizens Commercial Savings Bank in Flint, Michigan, on May 18, 1934. Like the Barrow letter, the authenticity of the letter writer is called into question. A week after this letter was received, Bonnie and Clyde were dead. 67 days later, so was John Dillinger. While Dillinger died in a Chicago Alley next to the Biograph Theater, Clyde Barrow died behind the wheel of his last stolen car: a Ford V8.
The letter, coming on the heels of the disastrous escape by Dillinger and his gang from the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin a month before on April 22, inspired a Milwaukee Ford Motor Car dealership to create and distribute a sales brochure asking the question, “Will They Catch John Dillinger?” on the front. When opened, it featured the answer, “Not Until They Get Him Out of a Ford V-8!” with additional info at bottom reading, “NEWS NOTE: John Dillinger evaded capture by making speedy get-away in new Ford V-8 after famous jail break at Crown Point, Indiana. His spectacular get-away from Little Bohemia Resort, Mercer, Wisconsin, was also in a Ford V-8.” The back of the brochure touts the Ford V-8’s “Speed: The Ford V-8 can do better than 80 miles per hour and keep it up, hour after hour. It has vibrationless pickup, tremendous hill climbing ability, and holds the road perfectly.” The “Economy: The new dual down-draft carburetion system of the Ford V-8 provides increased fuel economy at all speeds. The Ford V-8 gives better gasoline mileage than any other six or eight of equal power.” And, perhaps confirming Clyde Barrows assertion, the “Safety: The Ford all-steel body is inherently strong and exceedingly durable. It is electrically welded into a one-piece construction, giving greater safety and quietness.” The brochure concludes with the dealership name and address at 407 E. Michigan Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
There is a lot of history on the world’s most famous beach: cars, gangsters, auto racing, motorcycles, bootleggers and Henry Ford, for starters. When you think of auto racing, two American cities come to mind: Indianapolis and Daytona. However, before Indianapolis and Daytona, Ormond Beach was the mecca of auto racing. Ormond Beach just north of Daytona, held races on the beach from 1902 until after World War II. At that time, Ormond Beach was a playground for America’s rich and famous: The Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Roosevelts, Henry Flagler, John Jacob Astor; all spent their winters at the old Ormond Hotel.
From 1902 to 1935, auto industry giants such as Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet, and Ransom E. Olds brought their cars to race on the beach. Cigar-chomping Barney Oldfield, the most famous race-car driver in the world at the time, set a new world speed record on the Ormond-Daytona course in 1907. Racing faded somewhat in Ormond and Daytona after World War I as the racing world turned its attention to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
So it comes as no surprise that the gangsters of the 1930s drove Fords. In particular, outlaws John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face Nelson all preferred the Ford Model V8. Introduced in 1932, it was touted as America’s first affordable big-engine car. Dillinger also is said to have owned a Model A and what’s more, in mid-December of 1933, he drove his Ford to Daytona Beach for a vacation. After secretly visiting the Dillinger family farm in Mooresville, America’s first Public Enemy # 1 brought along girlfriend Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, Hoosier “Handsome Harry” Pierpont and his “molls” Mary Kinder, her sister Margaret and Opal Long and gang members Russell Clark and Fat Charlie Makley. The gang rented a spacious 3-story, seventeen room beach house for $ 100 a month at 901 South Atlantic Avenue until Mid-January, 1934. The house, long ago demolished, was located across the street from Seabreeze high school on the spot where “Riptides Raw Bar & Grill” and the Aliki Atrium are located today. Vacationers will recognize the “Riptides” name from the banner pulled by the tail of an airplane that constantly trails up and down Daytona beach.
One of those “must see” old timey casinos is located about 30 miles southwest of the Vegas strip in a desert town called Primm, Nevada not far from the California border. Known as “Whiskey Pete’s”, the casino covers 35,000 square feet, has 777 rooms, a large swimming pool, gift shop and four restaurants. The casino is named after gas station owner Pete MacIntyre. “Whiskey Pete” had a difficult time making ends meet selling gas, so he resorted to bootlegging and an idea was born. When Whiskey Pete died in 1933, he was secretly buried standing up with a bottle of whiskey in his hands so he could watch over the area. Decades later, his unmarked grave was accidentally exhumed by workers building a connecting bridge from Whiskey Pete’s to Buffalo Bill’s (on the other side of I-15). According to legend, the body was reburied in one of the caves where Pete once cooked up his moonshine.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Whiskey Pete’s is also home to the Bonnie and Clyde death car. As detailed in part III of this series, the car has had a long strange trip to Primm. The bullet-ridden car toured carnivals, amusement parks, flea markets, and state fairs for decades before being permanently parked on the plush carpet between the main cashier cage and a lifesize caged effigy of Whiskey Pete himself. According to the “Roadside America” website, “For a time it was in the Museum of Antique Autos in Princeton, Massachusetts, then in the 1970s it was at a Nevada race track where people could sit in it for a dollar. A decade later it was in a Las Vegas car museum; a decade after that it was in a casino near the California / Nevada state line. It was then moved to a different casino on the other side of the freeway, then it went on tour to other casinos in Iowa, Missouri, and northern Nevada. 
Complicating matters was the existence of at least a half-dozen fake Death Cars and the Death Car from the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde movie (which was in Louisiana and then Washington, DC, but now is in Tennessee).” Just in case of any remaining confusion, the Primm car is accompanied by a bullet riddled sign reading: “Yes, this is the original, authentic Bonnie and Clyde death car” (in all caps for emphasis).
The walls surrounding the death car are festooned with authentic newspapers detailing the outlaw lover’s demise and letters vouching to the vehicle’s authenticity. Cases contain other Bonnie and Clyde relics like a belt given by Clyde to his sister and classic candid photos of the star-crossed lovers and their families.
A movie, obviously created many years ago, recreates the event using newsreel footage, landscape photography and contemporary interviews with family members and eyewitnesses. Here, it is revealed that the shirt was found, decades after the outlaw’s death, secreted away in a sealed metal box along with Clyde’s hat. The film itself has become a piece of Americana and the images of Bonnie’s torn and tattered body left twitching in the car, resting silently mere yards away, are equally breathtaking. Nearby, although not nearly as shocking as the Bonnie and Clyde death car, another bullet-scarred automobile is on display. This one first belonged to gangster Dutch Schultz and later, Al Capone. Signs around the car proclaim that the doors are filled with lead and, judging by the pockmarks of the bullets denting the exterior, it is true. Although, like every casino, Whiskey Pete’s job remains separating gamblers from their money, both cars are on display 24 hours a day for free.
The interior of the Pioneer Saloon remains unchanged. It is easy to imagine Gone with the Wind star Gable drowning his sorrows at a rickety table or bracing himself against the cowboy bar and it’s brass boot rail. Ask and the bartender will point out the cigarette burn holes in the bar caused by Gable when he passed out from a mixture of grief and alcohol during his somber vigil. The tin ceiling remains as do the ancient celing fans (it gets HOT in the desert) and the walls are peppered with bullet holes left by cowboys who rode off into the sunset generations ago. The bar’s backroom is a shrine to the Lombard / Gable tragedy but sadly most of the relics on display there are modern photocopies and recreations. Locals claim that Carole Lombard’s ghost haunts the saloon in a desperate attempt to contact her grieving husband. The saloon is also reportedly haunted by the ghost of an old “Miner 49er” who appears drinking alone at the far end of the bar before vanishing into thin air. Millennials flock to the bar as the birthplace of the game “Fallout: New Vegas” which also has a small shrine located there.
During the Great Depression, some viewed the duo as near folk heroes, like Robin Hood and Maid Marian. And, although Hoosier outlaw John Dillinger reportedly once told a reporter that Bonnie and Clyde were “a couple of punks”, he and his fellow gang member Pretty Boy Floyd reportedly sent flowers to their funeral homes. The Barrow gang killed a total of 13 people, including nine police officers. They finally met their match on May 23, 1934, when six police officers ambushed them and shot some 130 rounds into the car. Dillinger outlasted Bonnie and Clyde by about two months – he met his maker on July 22, 1934. Truth is, proceeds from auctions of items associated with these outlaws over the past two decades (which number in the millions of dollars) far outdistance the proceeds of all of their robberies combined.
For my part, when we told our 25-year-old son about our anniversary trip to Las Vegas, he remained nonplussed by saying, “I would only want to go out there to see a town called Primm.” To which we said “been there, done that.” His reply, “I’d also like to go to a little town called Good Springs.” We answered, “Been there too.” He concluded by saying he’d like to see an old dive bar named the “Pioneer Saloon.” He was shocked when we said we went there too. Of course, the reason he wants to venture out there is video game related, not history related. Nonetheless, he was chagrined by our answers. I guess we old folks aren’t so square after all.
Alan E. Hunter 