Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1912 — POKER TABLE WITH UNWRITTEN HISTORY [ARTICLE]

POKER TABLE WITH UNWRITTEN HISTORY

Sheriff at MonticelloDestroya Table That Has Bone Duty For Fifty ’♦ . . 'v ’ ‘ ’' . -’■ A i .. ~ • Dale Shell, of Montlcello, was fined $23.60 this week for conducting a gambling house in that city. Included in the gambling room furniture confiscated and destroyed by the sheriff was a poker table that has (been in and around saloons, poolrooms and private gaming rooms in Monticello for fifty years. The history of this table would make interesting reading could it be written up. Monticello in its “wide-open” days had some of the largest games in the state. The most prominent politicians and lawyers of the city made a nightly practice of playing for big stakes and even some of the. circuit judges were noted for the amount of whisky they could drink and the high stakes they played for. Those days are past and the games now are confined mostly to the “tin-horn” gamblers of that county. The shooting scrape some months ago that nearly resulted in the death of a citizen of Monticello back of one of the gambling rooms there resulted in closing the rooms for a time, but the closing does not seem to have been permanent.