Leo Parnell Bergin was not a gangster or a bootlegger, nor a professional gambler, but a chance encounter with all of the above led to his untimely death in 1931 and exposed the fact that the city had become, in the words of the city’s leading newspaper, a “mecca for gangsters and gamblers from the East.” Continue reading
E. L. “Zeke” Caress is perhaps best remembered today as the victim of a bungled kidnapping in 1930 but he was also a master odds-maker with close ties to the Spring Street Gang. Continue reading
For all the energy expelled in expunging from Los Angeles that most dreaded of species, the gangsterous easternicus, one of the most invasive specimens of all of them was a hometown boy. Milton Bernard Page, known as “Farmer,” was born in the city in 1887. Though the gambling den was his natural habitat, he also dealt in liquor and prostitution. Continue reading
It was “Tutor” Scherer who launched the first known floating casino off the Southern California coast. He also had a large bookmaking operation and was affiliated with gambling clubs in Palm Springs as well as Hollywood’s Clover Club and the Airport Gardens in Glendale. Like fellow Spring Street Gang gamblers Guy McAfee and “Farmer” Page, he ended up in Las Vegas, where late in life he blossomed into a poet. Continue reading
J. H. Graham 