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Transcribed and submitted by Rachel Fuller
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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The Delmarvia Star
Wilmington, DE
July 3, 1927


                 NOTED BAR TURNED INTO BUTCHER SHOP
                 
               Board of Trade, Once Wisonsin's Pride,  
                         Now Meat Market.
                         
              From the most notorious saloon and gambling
            joint in the Northwest to a modest meat market
            and grocery is the transition the Board of
            Trade Building is undergoing here, giving Hurley,
            Wis., once the oasis of this neck of the woods,
            another legitimate business.
              The Board of Trade was the first building in
            Hurley ever to be padlocked. Again when a wave
            of padlocking struck Hurley, the Board of Trade
            was the first to be put under Federal lock and
            key and, strangely enough, the first to be un-
            locked again when proper bonds were filed in
            Federal Court.
              Carpenters are busy taking down the bar and
            other fixtures. From the walls have been taken
            life size pictures of Presidents Lincoln, Roose-
            velt and Wilson. Mounted moose heads that have
            been hanging about for years will give way to
            meat hooks, and counters will replace the long
            bar in front of a spacious mirror into which
            many a man has stared uncertainly to see how the
            liquor was reacting on him.
              The Board of Trade in the post-war years was
            regarded as the elite of saloons in the great
            north country and catered only to the best of
            trade. There was a time when the place would not
            serve a drink to a lumberjack, it is said. The
            proprietor often boasted that "we handle only
            good liquor here." But the supply of high-class
            drinks dwindled after the days of Prohibition,
            and moonshine and gin bucks began to be sold
            across the bar.
              The greatest money-making period for the Board
            of Trade was at the time when Michigan voted for
            local option and constabulary were stationed at
            the border line to prevent contraband liquor from
            crossing into Michigan.
              In those days wages were high. Iron ore was in
            great demand and man power was scarce. Even after
            the war ended the business was brisk and gambling
            was at its height in 1919.
              The second floor of the Board of Trade was de-
            voted entirely to gambling, and it was not un-
            common to see as much as $5,000 in silver piled
            up in a corner where the blackjack and dice games
            were in progress. The second floor rooms were so
            arranged that no one could command a full view 
            of the gambling places from any one room.
              In one part of the building a bar and lunch
            counter served patrons who gambled for hours and
            never left the tables. Gambling was at such a
            height at one time that the owner of the building
            rented poker tables at $8 an hour.
              A buzzer system operated and, while the average
            person could not account for it, as soon as there
            was a sign of a disturbance police arrived on the
            scene, leaving just a quietly as they came when
            the trouble was averted.
              Despite the fact that thousands of dollars changed
            hands nightly in the notorious place, only one rob-
            bery was ever attempted. A youth named Larson and
            another known as "Diamond Jack" Livingston entered
            the gambling rooms early one morning and commanded
            the dealers to throw up their hands. While they 
            were scooping up silver and preparing for a getaway,
            Larson was mortally wounded by a Hurley policeman
            and died a day or two later in an Ironwood hospital.
            Livingston was shot in the arm and was sentenced to
            serve a comparatively short term in the State Reform-
            atory at Green Bay.
              The Board of Trade bore a charmed life, or perhaps
            it was due to the charming personality of Myron
            Lytle, the proprietor, for never during the time he
            was owner was the establishment raided. Never a poor
            woman arrived at the place with a hard luck story
            that her husband had gambled away his pay but that
            Lytle produced the money for her and did it smilingly.
            Never once did he hear of a family in distress that
            he didn't come to its aid.
              It was said of Lytle that he could gamble more and
            loan more without "batting an eye" than any person
            ever seen here. He came to Hurley with a few hundred
            dollars. He left with a fortune, and hardly an enemy,
            strange to say.
              With the change of management that followed Lytle's
            departure, the Board of Trade lost caste, and when the
            raiders arrived it was just one of the "joints" that
            were raided and ordered padlocked.
            
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