Satan s Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars at America’s Greatest Gaming Resort

ISBN-10: 082239166X
ISBN-13: 9780822391661
Category: History
Pages: 408
Language: English
Published: 2009-01-01
Publisher: Duke University Press
Author: Paul J Vanderwood

Description

Satan’s Playground chronicles the rise and fall of the tumultuous and lucrative gambling industry that developed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the early twentieth century. As prohibitions against liquor, horse racing, gambling, and prostitution swept the United States, the vice industry flourished in and around Tijuana, to the extent that reformers came to call the town “Satan’s Playground,” unintentionally increasing its licentious allure. The area was dominated by Agua Caliente, a large, elegant gaming resort opened by four entrepreneurial Border Barons (three Americans and one Mexican) in 1928. Diplomats, royalty, film stars, sports celebrities, politicians, patricians, and nouveau-riche capitalists flocked to Agua Caliente’s luxurious complex of casinos, hotels, cabarets, and sports extravaganzas, and to its world-renowned thoroughbred racetrack. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and the boxer Jack Dempsey were among the regular visitors. So were mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, who later cited Agua Caliente as his inspiration for building the first such resort on what became the Las Vegas Strip. Less than a year after Agua Caliente opened, gangsters held up its money-car in transit to a bank in San Diego, killing the courier and a guard and stealing the company money pouch. Paul J. Vanderwood weaves the story of this heist gone wrong, the search for the killers, and their sensational trial into the overall history of the often-chaotic development of Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and Southern California. Drawing on newspaper accounts, police files, court records, personal memoirs, oral histories, and “true detective” magazines, he presents a fascinating portrait of vice and society in the Jazz Age, and he makes a significant contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Get the book

Similar books

The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen
By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval oflicer away on duty ...
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume I
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen
... had married the widowed daughter of a Washington tavern keeper. By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.
Rice University: One Hundred Years in Pictures
By Karen Hess Rogers, Lee Pecht, Alan Harris Bath
... Bill, Kennedy, Jacqueline, Kennedy, John F., Kidd, Albert and Elizabeth, Kieran Timberlake (architects), Kilpatrick, John, Kirkland, William, Kissinger, ...
Cengage Advantage Series: The Enduring Vision
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen
... 195–196, 361; abolishing of, 257 Ticonderoga fort, 157, 169 Tilden, Samuel J., 524 Timberlake, Peggy O'Neale, 301 Timbuktu, Mali, Sankore Mosque in, ...
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume 1
By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen
By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval officer away on duty, ...
The Cherokee Struggle to Maintain Identity in the 17th and 18th Centuries
By Jr., William R. Reynolds
Timberlake, p. 8 (9–10). 2. Timberlake, p. 36 (70). 3. Hoig, p. 45; Kelly, p. 22; Timberlake, p. 37 (72–73). 4. Alderman, p. 6; Timberlake, p.
Prehistoric Copper Mining in Europe, 5500-500 BC
By William O'Brien
Timberlake, S. 2002. 'Ancient prospection for metals and modern prospection for ancient mines: the evidence for Bronze Age mining within the British Isles', ...
The Sixties in the News: How an Era Unfolded in American Newspapers, 1959-1973
By William J. Ryczek
hadn't known Timberlake until the two moved in together. Kathy had worked at a series of jobs, including electronics assembler and a dancer in a bar, ...
A Borderland Confederate
By William Lyne Wilson
Terrill, Philip, killed Thompson, William S. Timberlake, George, wounded. Timberlake, Harry. Timberlake, J. H., wounded. Timberlake, J. L., wounded.
Golf in Columbus at Wyandot Country Club: A Lost Donald Ross Classic
By William R. Case
As the caretaker of the clubhouse, Timberlake was furnished living quarters on the second floor. Around 8:00 p.m., he descended into the basement for the ...