Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 113, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1916 — WICKEDEST SPOT IN AMERICA [ARTICLE]

WICKEDEST SPOT IN AMERICA

Last Stand for Gamblers, Gunmen and Desperadoes Is Tia Juana, in Mexico. Many visitors to the recent expositions in California who stopped in San Diego also took a look at Tia Juana, Mexico, a little group of onestory shacks, canvas walled and scenery fronted, that lay spraddled out in the broilng hot sun just far enough from the line to escape the legal restrictions of California and the United States government. Tia Juana probably was—and is—the wickedest spot on the American continent, a sort of a last stand, of the “gunmen,” sure-thing gamblers, , ‘honk-a-tonk”keeperßandjustpiain desperadoes, who have been run out of all other sections of the West Opium smuggling, gun running, conducting saloons with “win proof’ gambling houses attached, hippodrome bull fights, in which the tourist WBS

separated from |3 for the privilege of seeing a fat bull bled to death, were some of the manifold activities of the place. The only person supposed to have a legitimate place of business in the town was a Chinaman, who conducted a laundry, and he was restored to the esteem of his fellow citizens when it was discovered that the laundry merely was a mask for an opium Joint.