OPINION

The slot-machine man

It happened 50 years ago this week, and it's a day Tony Frazier will never forget.

Frazier, 79, was living in a house on Second Street in the Spa City in October 1967. Behind the house, which was leased from Dr. Lon Reed, was a large workshop that served as the home of Spa Amusement Co. Frazier's son, Bill (with whom I would later work in the sports department of the Arkansas Democrat), was 8 at the time and had just walked to his elementary school. Soon the house was surrounded by state troopers and FBI agents.

Casino operator Dane Harris was an owner of Spa Amusement Co., which supplied slot machines to Harris' Vapors Club, the Belvedere Country Club and other gambling establishments in the city.

Tony Frazier, who's from a Hot Springs family that goes back six generations, is relaxing on this day a half-century later in the back of the History of Hot Springs Gambling Museum. The museum is in a strip center adjacent to a Kroger store on Central Avenue just south of Oaklawn Park.

"I had left my job in 1960 and was looking for something else to do," he says. "I was standing by my car one day when two policemen came along. We started talking, and one of them told me he knew where there was a job available. It was with Ernie Bone at Spa Amusement. I worked there until 1964 when we closed for a few months because the heat was being turned up by the election season. We opened back up in March 1965 and stayed open until that raid in October 1967."

Arkansans elected Winthrop Rockefeller governor in November 1966, and Rockefeller vowed to shut down the wide-open gambling at Hot Springs, a place whose residents liked to say it was Vegas before there was a Las Vegas.

"On Aug. 17, 1967, Arkansas State Police director Lynn Davis brought 20 troopers to Hot Springs and raided many of the larger casinos," Wayne Threadgill writes in his 2002 book Gambling In The Spa. "Equipment was taken from the Bridge Street Club, the Citizens Club, the Ohio Club and the White Front Club. None of the places were operating at the time of the raids. The operators were notified prior to the raids."

An October raid at the Bellaire Drive home of Harry Columbus, the manager of the Southern Club, led to troopers seizing 111 slot machines. Some of the machines had stickers that said "this machine made by Spa Amusement."

"The machines were of a variety previously unknown to Col. Davis and other lawmen outside of Hot Springs, and featured five ways to hit a jackpot," Threadgill writes. "The nickel, dime and quarter variety were found stored along with others, all of which were in working order."

Later on the day of the Spa Amusement raid, troopers raided a second slot repair shop on Westbrook Street. More than 100 machines were taken in the two raids.

"They hauled truckload after truckload out of my shop," Frazier says. "They had been raiding the clubs earlier in the year, so the raid on us really didn't come as a surprise. They took our machines, but they didn't take the tools we used to work on them."

The slot machines were taken to a rock quarry, run over by a bulldozer and then burned. That was technically the end of Spa Amusement Co., but Frazier says he "never really stopped. Business slowed down for a time, but then people who had machines in their homes started coming to see me."

Two younger Hot Springs natives, Lanny Beavers and Chris Hendrix, began collecting chips years later from former Hot Springs casinos. Beavers' family moved to Hot Springs in 1965 when he was 3, and Hendrix was born there in 1966. They don't remember the casino era that ended in 1967, but both men are fascinated by it.

"I had a guy show me some dice from the Southern Club, and then I talked to a man who had chips from the various clubs," Hendrix says. "I started collecting them, and it grew from there." He met Beavers, whose collection also was growing rapidly.

"Both of our wives told us to get our stuff out of the house," Beavers says as Frank Sinatra tunes play in the museum. They found a space to rent a year ago and started with three slot machines. Now they have 65 machines, more than half of which were used in Hot Springs casinos. The machines date back to the 1920s. There also are roulette wheels, craps tables, blackjack tables and more. That's in addition to thoroughbred racing memorabilia, old photos and postcards from Hot Springs, menus from the clubs, etc.

"It's amazing what we've found and what people will bring in," Beavers says. "I love racing. Chris is more into the history of the gangsters. So our interests complement each other."

For now, the museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. No admission is charged. Appointments can be made to visit on other days.

Frazier heard about the museum, walked in and began talking with Beavers and Hendrix. They rented additional space next door and built Frazier a workspace. Now he's back to his old craft of restoring slot machines for private owners. A lot of people around Hot Springs have had slot machines in their homes for years. And it's work without the threat of an Arkansas State Police raid since it's completely legal.

"I always wanted to know what it was like to see an old-fashioned casino in Hot Springs," Beavers says. "This is as close as we're going to get. I even have a craps table that was in a casino owned by Meyer Lansky in Saratoga Springs. It just keeps growing."

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 10/07/2017

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