Archive for category: Blog

Patients at the Virginia Home Play Bingo, July 9, 1968, FIC.033234, Richmond Times-Dispatch Collection, The Valentine. Photo: H. Lee Gupton.

With the defeat of a new Richmond casino at the ballot box, a look at gambling’s recent history here seems pertinent. For much of the 20th century, Virginia has had some of the strictest anti-gambling laws in the country. A long tradition of horse racing and dice and card-playing among the state’s illustrious white citizens had destroyed the wealth of a number of colonial families, including that of William Byrd III, son of our city’s founder. A notorious gambler, Byrd sold off his vast estate in 1767 and still could not cover his gambling debts, which he had racked up by the age of 30.

By the 1890s, gambling was deemed so detrimental to all classes of society that the General Assembly could no longer countenance it, no matter how traditional. They banned race track betting in 1894, then tightened the law just a year later. Over the next several decades, with support from Protestant churches, our state government essentially banned all forms of gambling. It was not until 1973 that our legislators decided to loosen restrictions. They did so narrowly, allowing only certified non-profits to host Bingo games. The logic behind the new law was that if Virginians were going to gamble, the profits could at least go to good causes.

Bingo was hugely popular in the United States in the 1930’s, during the Great Depression. Movie houses and fairs held jackpot games, while families began to play non-gambling versions of the game at home. The basic premise gave each player a large card, gridded with numbers. A non-player then drew numbers randomly from a hat, or even a fancy lotto ball machine. If that number appeared on a player’s card, they covered that number with a chip. A player won—calling Bingo!—when they achieved a row of five straight chips. Other versions of the game also rewarded other configurations, like chipping all four corners. The appeal of the game was its simplicity. It could be played by all ages, in very large crowds. The crowd-friendly game also created big jackpots for little pay-in.

According to the 1973 law, only federally recognized non-profits could run a game, with volunteers who were members of the non-profit. The price of cards and jackpot amounts were capped, as well as player age and profit percentages. Soon, churches, synagogues, civic organizations, and athletic clubs had set up tables in their basements and multi-purpose rooms to host Bingo. The public came in droves. The average Bingo player in 1975 lost $10 per night. Smaller games presented a larger chance of winning smaller jackpots, but a large game could pay out as much as $1500.

By 1977, Richmonders were spending over $1 million a year on Bingo. The game had grown so huge that the original law, which charged local governments with enforcement, failed to address a large number of problems. City and county governments scrambled to regulate Bingo. Richmond City Council unanimously passed a 6% admission tax—the same charged at movie theaters—in order to fund regulation in the city. Charities were required to file annual reports of their profits and payouts with auditors. Then a special commission was appointed to investigate complaints and enforce building, fire, and safety codes at the packed Bingo halls.

The metro Richmond area saw 150 organized Bingo games every week in 1978. That year, non-profits raised around $6 million with Bingo proceeds alone. The largest Bingo game in town was the annual Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser, which filled the Richmond Arena with 1700 players, who raised $32,000 for the cause. In fact, Bingo had grown so huge in the Richmond area in just five years that these non-profits did not have space for the growing crowds of players. The groups tried to buy new buildings or build larger annexes. But the law stipulated that Bingo proceeds could only be used for charitable expenses. Virginia’s attorney general was forced to clarify that non-profits could not buy real estate with their Bingo profits. So, the groups began to rent space for their Bingo games.

For-rent Bingo halls began to pop up all over Richmond. Places like “Crazy Jack’s” on Parham Road provided space and all the (sometimes expensive) equipment for a large Bingo game. But with expansion into the rental market came abuses. Some groups paid more in rent than in charitable activities. In 1979, the General Assembly passed more laws regulating Bingo, requiring fair-market rents and limiting buildings to 2 games a week. The rental halls were prohibited from keeping a percentage of Bingo profits.

By the early 1980s, Temple Beth-El, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge, the Civitan Club, St. Paul’s School, the Christian Workers Council, the Tuckahoe Moose, the Ginter Park Junior Women’s Club, the Metropolitan Junior Baseball League, the Richmond Speleological Society, the Jewish Community Center, and St. Mary’s Catholic Church all hosted Bingo games. Across the state, civic clubs, animal shelters, fire department, little leagues, and school districts all used on Bingo profits to keep their organizations running. Generally, for $2 a player received three cards at a Bingo game. They could also buy Instant Bingo cards, much like scratch tickets, for 25 cents each. The low stakes made the game seem less like gambling and more like fundraising—until players began to buy and play 30 cards at once!

Proponents of non-profit gaming argued that it was much more lucrative than selling candy and magazines door to door, or outright begging for funds. Fire stations and schools could raise money for new equipment without draining tax coffers. And, unlike casino gambling, someone in the crowd always wins at Bingo. Despite the long odds of winning, this is true. Richmond non-profits only profited 25-40% in any given game, with the majority of cash going to the jackpot, and the winner. Also, unlike casino gambling, there’s no way for the house to cheat. Everyone watches the caller pull the numbers. Of course, that does not mean that the players did not cheat. They certainly did, by removing numbers from their cards or stamping them over with new numbers.

Like more traditional gambling, Richmonders played Bingo for many reasons. Some treated it like simple entertainment or charitable giving, while others played for income. Elderly people played to get out of the house and socialize. Others, inevitably, played because they’d become addicted. The slightest hiccup in a game could bring out the worst in a Bingo crowd. A snowstorm cancellation or a botched call often led to unruly confrontations. Security guards patrolled many Bingo halls to keep the peace. In 1976, three years after non-profit Bingo became the first legal form of gambling in the state, Gamblers Anonymous sought to open a chapter in Richmond—the first in the state.

Non-profit Bingo is still big in Richmond, though it is waning now that Virginia allows two other forms of gambling. The Virginia State Lottery was sanctioned in 1988. Horse track betting became legal in 1989. For some, charitable Bingo has seemed like a near-perfect solution to fundraising. But as profits exploded, charities spent a lot of those profits on expanding their Bingo operations. Local and state lawmakers tried to find a balance. In 1994, Henrico County banned Instant Bingo cards. But state caps on winnings were eventually raised, as well as the cap on the number of games allowed per week. The flow of more money inevitably attracted criminal activity. In Henrico County, a man nicknamed “The Bingo King” skimmed $700,000 from local charities in the 1990s. In 1996, due to rampant abuse like this, the state appointed a commission to regulate Bingo.

The percentage of profits required to be spent on charitable activities was also lowered to just 10%. But into the 21st century, many charities struggled still to meet those requirements. Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent local “softball mom” was corrupted by Bingo games meant to raise money for her child’s team. Critics of Bingo also pointed out the irony of charities helping poor residents with 10% of the profits gleaned from the poor Bingo players in their basements.

Anti-gambling arguments carry paternalistic overtones, especially when the majority of gamblers are from low-income homes. As a Times-Dispatch reporter noted while covering Bingo games in 1975, the majority of the players were Black women of little economic means. But, if we look at what was happening in the Black community at the time, the “personal choice” angle gets complicated. In 1973, when Bingo was legalized, the destruction of the Fulton neighborhood was well underway. There, 850 homes, churches, and businesses were razed in the name of “urban renewal.” The overwhelming majority of those properties were Black-owned. The same is true of the several square blocks downtown that were cleared to make way for the Coliseum in 1971. In 1975, 700 houses in Randolph, Sydney, and Oregon Hill were being razed as well to make way for the Downtown Expressway. Again, the destruction disproportionately targeted Black homes and businesses. It is hard to imagine that while this willful destruction of Black wealth and opportunity perfectly coincided with the rise of Bingo, not a few players were simply desperate and trapped in an impossible situation. It’s not hard to imagine that the thousands of displaced Black residents found that personal choice had little to do with their circumstances, or felt better that the money they lost was going to a “good cause.” With both the law and public opinion intent on the destruction of these Black communities, many Bingo players no doubt felt that the only resource still available to them was a bit of luck.

As the Summer Games kick off in Tokyo, let’s turn our attention to Richmond’s own Olympic history. Are you surprised that Richmond has an Olympic history? It does! In 1996, the Olympic torch passed through and even spent the night here, on its way to Atlanta. If that doesn’t seem very noteworthy, let us illuminate the significance of the event.

First, the choice of Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Games was controversial. To be blunt, many considered Atlanta to be a second-tier city unworthy of the prestigious event. Compounding that, Atlanta (like other southern cities) had not overcome its reputation as an epicenter for injustice: slavery, followed by segregation, followed by racial violence during the Civil Rights Movement. That long history, which included the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War, was hard for many Americans to forget. For detractors, Atlanta did not represent the “American ideals” that should be presented to the world. For supporters of the Atlanta Games, however, the Olympics offered the perfect opportunity to showcase a new and reformed American South, which they believe had overcome this painful history. No doubt, this historic rehabilitation was on the minds of many Southerners, not just Georgians. So when the Olympic torch arrived in Richmond on June 21, 1996, citizens rallied in support, enthusiasm, and optimism.

The “Mother Torch” had left Athens, Greece, on April 27, aboard a Delta flight to Los Angeles. They were granted special permission for the airborne flame, which burned inside a brass lantern, inside a bronze canister, while affixed to the wall of the plane. From Los Angeles, the Olympic flame began its 15,000-mile, 84-day journey to Atlanta. The fire was carried by hand by 10,000 torch bearers, who made their individual half-mile journeys to light the next torch in line.  Some walked, some ran, others rode bikes or wheelchairs or motorcycles. Every night, the Mother Flame stayed in a hotel room with two police officers: one slept, while the other kept watch to make sure the flame never went out.

The actual torches—17,700 of them—weighed three pounds and were outfitted with dual burners that could withstand rain and 45mph winds. The lit torches were further protected by a motorcade of Georgia State Troopers, Olympic Committee vehicles, and many sponsor cars, including a fleet of Coca-Cola trucks and trailers, stocked to sell to thirsty spectators along the epic journey across the country. This was, after all, the first Olympics to rely almost exclusively on corporate sponsors. The Georgia State Troopers rode in $33,000 BMWs that were painted like the $18,000 Crown Victorias they normally drove.

The torch entered Richmond via Monument Avenue on the night of June 21. Around 9:45pm, it passed one of the major symbols of our “reformed” southern city: the Arthur Ashe, Jr. Monument, which was to be unveiled in just a couple weeks.

In all, 24 locals moved the torch through Richmond. Thousands lined the dark streets to watch the procession. At 10:30pm, Judy Henry, a cancer survivor and mother of five relayed the torch to Tredegar, where approximately 15,000 spectators cheered her on as she lit the cauldron and kicked off a gala. Among the flags of 100 nations, live music, food carts and living gold-painted statues, the party went on late into the night and turned out to be much larger than anyone expected.

The Torch Is Coming! The Torch Is Coming!, 1996 Handbill, V.96.75.01, The Valentine.

Newspaper accounts and interviews about the Olympic event here alluded to optimism, unity and joy. Kids freely confessed to reporters that they had skipped school to follow the torch, others that they had skipped work. Clearly, Richmonders glimpsed hope in the Olympic torch’s brief stay here. But by 10am the next morning, it had moved on to Petersburg.

On July 19, the flame arrived in Atlanta. There, Muhammad Ali received the final torch and lit the cauldron to open the 1996 Summer Games. Thus, the city devastated by fire in 1864 hoped for rebirth through a different kind of fire. The Reformed South was now in full public view. And Ali, near the end of the games, was given a replacement gold medal for the boxing gold he had won at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Decades earlier, Ali claimed to have thrown his original medal in the Ohio River, after being refused service at a Louisville restaurant. Though some doubted the story, the medal had definitely been lost and it seemed fitting for him to reclaim his lost gold in the Reformed South.

But now we need to backtrack back to Richmond, to the glorious few hours when the Olympic torch illuminated our streets and so many felt inspired. This would be a poor history indeed if we stuck to the pre-approved parade route down Monument Avenue. Because in 1996, when the torch came through, Richmond was in a terrible state. Not since the Civil War had our city been so devastated. For twenty years, the population had been plummeting, mainly due to white flight in response to desegregation and busing. By 1990, Richmond had lost over 50,000 residents. It is likely that the majority of those 15,000 spectators who welcomed the Olympic flame at Tredegar did not live in Richmond at all.

As tax dollars, jobs, businesses and middle-class families fled to the suburbs, the city’s population then dwindled even more, for the loss of these things. Decades of racist housing policies added fuel to the fire. It was a death spiral of factors that mostly left only those who could not leave: mainly poor Black Richmonders, with little public support and even fewer opportunities to help themselves in the empty city. The poverty and desperation became the substrate from which a crack epidemic exploded. The homicide rate reached triple digits in 1988. In 1994, 160 people were murdered here. The crack epidemic ravaged our neighborhoods and though it bore a striking resemblance to today’s opioid epidemic, there were two main differences: the victims of crack were largely Black; and the crisis was considered one of crime, not public health. With that, there was little help for addiction, mostly just jail. The desperation and criminality created its own death spiral, and it was not uncommon to hear automatic gunfire on the residential streets of Church Hill.

“Blacks Mobilizing Against Crime” on Venable Street, November 18, 1989, Don Pennell, V.91.04.700, Richmond Times-Dispatch Collection, The Valentine.

So that is the city through which the Olympic torch passed in the summer of 1996. People no doubt felt afraid as they crowded along Richmond streets at night to see the historic flame, as they walked back to their cars late after the gala ended. When they spoke vaguely of “bad news” and “recent events,” they were actually speaking of the rampant crime. Despite the belief of many in a Reformed South and despite hopes that the Atlanta games might spark that belief into reality, Richmond’s problems were still very much rooted in racial injustice and would only get worse. The next year, 1997, Richmond would have the highest per-capita murder rate in the country. Clearly, the problem could not be solved with mere symbolism—not a torch or a monument. And though meaningful progress has come, and the idea of a Reformed Richmond does seem more tangible today, there is still so much more to do. That lesson on the limits of symbolism still applies.

As the nation swelters in these early summer months, it seems fitting to explore the city’s history with a small relief we may take for granted: ice. Not until 1856 did regular Richmonders have access to a truly cold drink on a summer day. The luxury was brought to us by David King, an immigrant from Northern Ireland, who opened an office and ice house at 1811 East Cary Street. At his dock on the Kanawha Canal, he began to receive schooners from Maine, loaded with frozen slabs of the Kennebec River.

That’s right—the first commercial ice available in Richmond was shipped all the way from Maine. Twenty-inch slabs sailed hundreds of miles down the seaboard, up the James River, and into the canal. They were then stored in a huge hole in the ground so they would not melt in our summer heat. Ice from the Kennebec River had a reputation for sparkling clarity and cleanliness. Despite this, and despite its obvious allure to a sweaty southern city, ice was not immediately popular here. The cost made it inaccessible for many. Also, palates that had been drinking lukewarm or hot beverages for a lifetime were probably unaccustomed to the switch. Ice was largely used by restaurants, hospitals, and the wealthy in the antebellum era. Drivers delivered the slabs by horse-drawn wagon. King had enough business to keep him afloat until the Civil War, in which he fought on the Confederate side. But he returned from the First Battle of Manassas sick. He was unable to keep up with the increasing demands of the ice business.

Too ill to work, David King left the operation of his ice business to his brother-in-law, John McGowan. King died in 1872, as his family knew he would. He left a widow and seven children. But in 1874, the family received another blow, this one a complete surprise: John McGowan died suddenly, in July, at the height of the ice season. With this, King’s widow, Jane, needed a new person to run her family’s business if she was to keep herself and her seven children fed. But the ice business was tricky and required much foresight and experience. Contracts with Maine suppliers were signed in early winter, without any clue of the next season’s weather. Everyone lived in fear of a mild Maine winter or a sweltering Virginia summer. And the product itself was as volatile as the business. She very quickly decided that the person to run the ice house must be herself.

Jane King, Undated, Cook Collection, The Valentine

Jane King had worked behind the scenes at her husband’s business, mostly as a bookkeeper. She knew the business well, though she also well knew the prejudices she would face. Few male workers, let alone sea captains, would take orders or do business with a woman in the 1870s. On top of that, an economic depression had taken hold in 1874 and her brother had taken out a new mortgage on the canal-front property right before he died.

At the age of 44, Jane King determined that the only way to step into the role of an ice dealer was to do so boldly. She reopened under her name and took out a color ad on the front cover of the 1875 city directory: MRS. JANE KING DEALER IN ICE.

V.50.112.29, Jane King Advertisement, Circa 1880, The Valentine

Soon after Mrs. Jane King took over the ice house, she met a captain on her dock and told him where and how to unload. He refused to do anything a woman told him to do. She then refused to pay him. The stand-off ended quickly in her favor. In another instance, a crew grew so irate at her audacity to be a boss that they poured varnish over the ice they had just delivered. She docked the value from her payment. Predictably, men in the business began calling her the Ice Queen behind her back, as she remained cool and firm and businesslike through these protests. She earned a reputation as a serious businesswoman who would not be cowed. Within two years of taking the helm, the family business was out of the red.

Jane King did more than keep the ice house running. She expanded and thrived, even as ice’s ever-growing popularity brought on competitors. One main rival, Richmond Ice, opened in 1881. They alone received over 100 ice schooners a year and could store 3,000 tons of ice in a mammoth hole on Canal Street. To stay competitive, King innovated and embraced new technologies. With the rise of the railroads, she took full advantage of the tracks alongside the canal and began to ship ice not only around Virginia, but into West Virginia and the Carolinas. To beat competitors’ prices, she began storing her own winter ice from a spring pond on her suburban farm. She called it “country ice” and sold it at a 20% discount. She diversified with a coal and wood yard, to keep business strong in the winter months. An early adopter of the telephone, she was the first woman in the city to have a phone line in her name and the only woman listed in the city’s first telephone directory.

In 1881, King bought 205 N. 19^th Street, one of the most illustrious homes in Richmond (still standing and now known as the Pace-King House). Her new home had two indoor bathrooms and running water in all the bedrooms. Living in luxury, she also maintained high standards for her product. If she noticed dirty ice coming off a ship, she let the captain know that he should clean his hold. If a railcar went astray and her ice melted, she made good use of her phone and collected damages from the railroad company. Her reputation for coolness came from the fact that she did not raise her voice in argument, though she did not shy from pursuing wrongs via lawsuits. By 1892, the operation had grown 700% and employed 30 men, and owned 14 ice wagons, seven coal wagons, and 40 horses.

In nearly 40 years, the basic logistics of the ice business changed very little. Sailed in from Maine, unloaded by crews, stored in the ground, and delivered by wagon; the slabs kept food fresh, hospitals running, and Richmonders cool. But a fundamental change did come in 1892, virtually overnight: an artificial ice plant opened here. The whole business model crumbled. Suddenly, ice could be made in vast quantities, onsite and on-demand. Without ice cutters in Maine, without ships, captains or docks, without gargantuan holes in the ground. Without living in fear of the weather. In response, Jane King did not balk. Before anyone else could do it, she contracted the entire output of the factory and stopped shipping from Maine entirely.

No amount of savviness could hold off the machine age. And it would not be long before more artificial ice plants sprang up in Richmond. The traditional ice companies needed to slim down and band together to survive. Only three years after artificial ice came here, in 1895, King and her three main competitors merged. King retired on a very generous stipend.

King’s career no doubt inspired other Richmond women who would pursue their own businesses. She obviously did not rid this city of prejudice. As soon as she knocked down a barrier, it essentially went back up for the next generation. This was the 19^th century, after all. But you do not need to change an entire culture to affect change. Her most lasting impact, as evidenced by her nickname, was her behavior in the face of discrimination. She taught women how to succeed despite the culture. After shying away from a fistfight, King’s grandson once recalled her response. “Hold your own,” she scolded him. “Never back down.” It was the reason, after all, for her own success.

Much of the information for this blog post is from a the article “Ice Queen” by Helen Milius, published in the December 1959 issue of The Commonwealth.