Historic Preservation Commission Agenda and Packet 2023 04 24

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and as a response to the KKK's anti -bootlegging efforts. The Smaldone crime family was involved with bootlegging during Prohibition in the 1920s and with illegal gambling into the 1980s. The November 23, 1953 Denver Post described the Smaldone brothers as "[s]ons of a small time North Denver bootlegger" who "took on the style of Chicago gangsters of the roaring twenties" and "emerged as the underworld big shots." According to Denver and Louisville newspapers, the Bug Dust Pool Hall building at 916 Main was one of the Smaldones' sites in the state where they had lucrative gambling interests and even faced charges due to setting up a rigged table with magnetized dice. The Smaldone brothers consisted of Eugene "Checkers," Clyde "Flip Flop," and Clarence "Chauncey." Chauncey, the last surviving brother, passed away in 2006. An extensive front page article in the Nov. 5, 2006 Denver Post (Denver's Brother Hoods — The Denver Post) from the time of Chauncey's death chronicled the Smaldone family's illegal activities. An interview with Denver Post columnist Dick Kreck, also from shortly after Chauncey Smaldone passed away, aired on Colorado Public Radio ( Denver's Last Mafia Boss Dies I Colorado Public Radio c r.or ). In the interview, Kreck stated that "for forty years, [the Smaldones] essentially ran gambling in Denver" and that they served prison sentences in federal prison on various charges. In response to the question of how the Smaldone family came to lose its influence, Kreck stated in the radio program: The fact that the state's now involved in gambling kind of cut into their business. You don't have to go to Louisville to play poker now — you can go to Central City. KCFR also interviewed Kreck about the Smaldone family here: Author Dick Kreck: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family I Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org) . Kreck wrote a book entitled Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family (Chicago Review Press, 2010). Louisville had appeal as a place where gamblers could go and not be bothered, and it appears that for a time they were not bothered much. Louisville in the early 1950s was still a small, fairly remote coal mining town and was known to be one of Colorado's several communities to which Italians had immigrated for work and still had a significant presence. In addition, it was within easy driving distance from Denver at a time when more and more people had automobiles. The crackdown on gambling at the Bug Dust shows that there was a collision of cultures taking place between Louisville's history of mostly being left alone and of its town board having the ability to look the other way, and a new, strong effort by authorities (in the form of the Boulder County sheriff) who began to crack down during a time of heightened morality in the 1950s. 5 26