Bookies, wiretappers and organized crime in Fort Lauderdale 1922

By Jane Feehan

Boom times beckoned many to Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, including organized criminal types.

In 1922, a well-dressed group of men rented the Oliver home downtown with more than sand and surf in their plans.The visitors, who drove fancy cars, displayed expensive golf bags and threw big tips around, didn’t extend social invitations to locals to their rented quarters, raising suspicions. But would-be gamblers had little need for invitations. They beat a path to the rented Oliver home, hoping to leave with winnings from off-track betting. The well-heeled gang promised sure wins; they had wiretapped telephones at horse tracks.   

Their elaborate scheme didn’t really include wiretapping; it was a ruse that eventually sent the unsuspecting to New Orleans by train with a gang member to pick up big winnings at their “headquarters.” The gang member would disappear en-route, leaving the gambler with nothing but a train ride.  Victims, engaged in illegal gambling, didn’t bother reporting their misfortune to the police.

Nevertheless, word got around about bookies and wiretapping and a government raid on February 19, 1922, netted 13.  Bail was posted and the men (all had given fictitious names), were set free. That was the end of the first organized crime foray into Fort Lauderdale.

The following month, Gov. Carey Hardee appointed Paul C. Bryan as Broward’s new sheriff.  Bryan delivered a warning to criminals: those who came to Broward County would come to grief. “No wiretappers shall operate here.”

Hello Miami.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources:

1. Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

2. Fort Lauderdale Herald, Feb. 20, Feb. 22, 1922

3. Miami News, March 3, 1922.

Tags: Florida in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s,  organized crime in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale history, Sheriff Paul Ryan, film research, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Meyer Lansky buys Colonial Inn from Lou Walters - 1945

Colonial Inn, circa 1946.  Courtesy of Broward County Historical Commission

By Jane Feehan

The purchase of the Colonial Inn* in Hallandale for $80,000 topped the week’s real estate transactions reported by the Fort Lauderdale Daily News, June 9, 1945.

Meyer Lansky (1902-1983), an organized crime figure, bought the property from Louis E. “Lou” Walters. The Colonial Inn, near Gulfstream Park, was closed from 1941 until Walters opened it December 22, 1944. The inn operated for five days. Walters, father of today’s TV personality Barbara Walters, was a night club “impresario,” with clubs and shows in Las Vegas and New York City (He died in 1977.) 

After closing the Colonial Inn, Walters took his night club show to the Cabaret Restaurant in Miami Beach. He was the original operator of the Latin Quarter on Palm Island in Miami Beach and the famed Latin Quarter in New York City.

Lansky was also known for “dabbling” in the nightclub biz. The Fort Lauderdale Daily News noted his affiliations with nightclubs in Broward County and reported “future plans for operating the Inn await Lansky’s return from New York City.”

Those future plans were probably known to many. Lansky, long affiliated with mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano, was expanding his gambling operations in Florida and Las Vegas, and later to Cuba. He opened the Colonial Inn December 1945. The Inn became a profitable, posh East Coast gambling establishment. It was closed by the government in 1948. For more on the demise of the club, and Meyer Lansky, search labels at right.

* Not to be confused with the Colonial Inn on Motel Row.

For more on Lansky, see index.

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Hallandale history, Broward County history, Meyer Lansky, Colonial Inn in Hallandale, South Florida gambling history, Broward County in the 1940s, Lou Walters , Florida mob history, 
film researcher, Jane Feehan
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