Archive Record
Metadata
Accession number |
1998.005 |
Catalog Number |
1998.005.001 |
Object Name |
Audiocassette |
Date |
19 Jan 1998 |
Title |
Kemmerly, Merle Oral History |
Scope & Content |
Original tape. Oral history interview with Mr. Merle Kemmerly. Interviewed by Ray Lucas, Ray Waller, and Mike Montgomery. Oral History Interview of Mr. Merle Kemmerly January 19, 1998 Conducted by Ray F. Lucas, Ray Waller, and Mike Montgomery [Tape 1, Side A, Index 000 Mr. Kemmerly's early life] [Merle Kemmerly] You have to ask me a bunch of questions, because, I don't know, I've never done this before and Ray (Waller) has never done this before. So shoot away. [Ray Lucas] We will try to get you some questions. [Lucas] First, if I could just get your name, date of birth and where you live? [Kemmerly] I was born in a rice field, in South Louisiana. [Ray Waller] This boy is from Thibodaux. [Kemmerly] I was born in Crowley. [Lucas] Oh, OK, I went to USL in Lafayette. [Kemmerly] OK, that where all of the whorehouses are. [Laughs] New Iberia, Opelousas, right? OK. Whatcha need to know? My name? Merle Floyd Kemmerly Jr. I was born in 1925 in Crowley, Louisiana. What else? [Lucas] Where do you live now? [Kemmerly] I live in Bossier (City). [Lucas] Bossier. [Kemmerly] 1520 Debra. I graduated from Byrd (in Shreveport), and [pause] I really grew up in Shreveport. I'll tell you a fast little old thing about my background and my daddy and my mother and myself. My daddy and my mother moved to San Antonio (Texas) when I was about maybe two or three years old. OK. And about, I'm thinking 'thirty-two, three whatever, they moved to Benton (Bossier parish, LA), and my daddy sold Fords at Ray Dickerson up-town. OK. And then they put him in charge of all of Bossier Ford and times were rough, a nickel was very big, anyway, we lived at Benton at the Montgomery home for about a year I think and then we moved into Shreveport in a, I think a two room, house, no the front room, duplex, excuse me a duplex on Highland (Street) and I went to that little school over there, I forget the name of it. [Waller] Pleasant Home? [Kemmerly] No. [Waller] Crestwell? [Kemmerly] No, I ended up, the next year we moved on; on [pause] anyway I went to Crestwell. Uh, I'll think of that one the name of that street. Isn' t that terrible? We lived there I went all the way through Crestwell, and uh, Prospect, not Prospect, excuse me I'll think of it later. Anyway, I went all the way through Crestwell with all of the rich, rich people. Albert Sklar, Sinclair Kouns, and I can name [indecipherable a few?] they didn't have all the schools. You know? And uh, you either, in that neck of the woods you had to go to Crestwell. You know, but I graduated from with all of them and then I went into Byrd. And about 1939 my daddy was the first person to open up a used car lot on Texas Avenue. [Montgomery] Really? [Kemmerly] Yeah, uh, and the way that came about, he was selling cars for Ray Dickerson and Mr. Phillips was the book-keeper and my daddy said, "why don't," then used cars wasn't, didn't know the word used cars, you know. If you had a car maybe I'd buy it from you whatever. My dad got the idea about, you know, used cars, selling used cars. But he didn't have the money, to buy'em. So he told Mr. Phillips the bookkeeper, "why don't you lend me some money to buy some cars, and I'll pay you so much interest." Well he ended up having the first used car lot on Texas Avenue then he ended up having three used car lots on Texas Avenue and Mr. Phillips turned around and opened up Shreveport Finance and made millions and millions, all through my daddy's [indecipherable, index 92] and then Mr. Phillips ended up floor planning no telling how many used car dealers. You know lend them money and getting interest on them, then financing cars and so on and so on Shreveport Finance. And then the war came along and my daddy, he was buying a lot of real clean cars, over in Texas and sending them down to Lake Charles and I was driving most of them back and fourth back and fourth, but he got the Pontiac Dealership and he and his brother had a Pontiac Dealership in Lake Charles for about eighteen years. They sold out to a fella name (Hale?) but anyway that kind of brings us up to [pause]. [Kemmerly] I graduated in 1943 from Byrd; anyway, I more or less grew up in the automobile business. But I never really did care for the automobile business. I guess I had so much of it, I was around the candy shop so much, I ate so much candy, I never did care for candy no more. But anyway, so when the war came along, ah, there wasn't no cars. Ya know? They weren't building no cars. So, I, ok the last year, the last year that I was in high school, I started selling women's shoes. And I sold women's shoes all over Shreveport. Ah Lane's, Frank's, Newstats', Phelp's, you name it I sold one of them shoes. So I got married, and ah, I don' t know if y'all know Buddy Price, did you know Buddy Price? Ray? Anyway. Buddy had a little biddy, biddy, biddy, building out on Grimith. And uh, you know where the airport drive pulls off of Grimith, you know where that is? You know the municipal airport. About two blocks down he had this little tin building he was fixing radiators, you know every now and then he'd fix a fender or something like that you know. So anyway, Buddy and I graduated school together, and uh, so I said Buddy, why don't I go out and buy some cars, you know just junky stuff and you fix'em up, and we'll split the profit. OK. So, anyway, I went out and bought about four cars and brought them into Buddy's shop and so a month passed and ain't nothing done on the cars, and I said, Buddy! I got my money tied up in these cars and you ain't fixed the cars. And he said, well I don't have time. Why in the hell didn't you tell me to begin with? So I rolled up my sleeves and I fixed the cars and I sold them. Then people would see me fixing up the cars and you know they wanted their car painted and fixed and so on and so on, and now I am in the paint and body business. So I moved from there after about six or seven months, over on North Market, [indecipherable] I am working my ass off. I mean seven o'clock in the morning to eleven o'clock at night. Only time I'd take off is Sunday afternoon to go shoot traps. But other than that I was working. You know my wife is a nurse and she's leaving at eleven and I'm coming in you know and that is the way we were living. So anyway, that goes on for about two years. And my grandfather got this little bar down in Jennings. [Kemmerly to Lucas] you know where Jennings is. [Lucas] Yes sir. [Kemmerly] He just owned the fixtures, he don't own the building or nothing. Well anyway. He died of a heart attack. So my mother said, [indecipherable, index, 165] "do you want to sell your tools up here and go down there and run the bar?" I said, I don't know nothing about no bar. I don't know nothing, zero. I had gone to all of the clubs around Shreveport and danced and corralled and whatever, but I didn't know anything about running no bar. I said well, I thought and I thought and I looked around and I couldn't find anybody that had made much money in the paint and body business. And I said this one over here is 60 years old and seventy years old and they ain't, they still working their ass off. I said, well, I don't see a lot of future in that. So I told mother, OK, I'll sell my tools and I'm gonna go take the bar over. So I leave in a raggedy old car and I go to the Mississippi State Shoot in Natchez. Heading down towards Jennings. I go to Jennings and I don't know, [motion to Lucas]; well you know how clannish it is down in South Louisiana. Big time, big time clannish. I just as soon be from New York City. And some little mother-f***er said, what you foreign son-of-a-bitch doing down here. You know, I mean god. So anyway, they had four men bartenders and they were not even splitting with the house. Had a lot of business. You know, so I know how to add and I'm sitting there, like, you know, a dollar goes in the register, two dollars goes in your pocket. And you know this ain't gonna, this ain't gonna work. So I told them now look, y'all got to stop that and I said you can't give all that drinks away. They had a package liquor deal on one end. And they was given, given! Fifths of whiskey. I said we can't survive like that. They said, yeah, OK we understand. They kept doing it. One was doing it worse than the others. I said now look, if you keep doing that, I'm going to let you go. Yeah, I understand, I understand. Well, all of his friends, that he was given all the stuff to said, you can't let him go. He has been here ten years. I don't give a shit how long he has been here, if he keeps stealing the god dammed money, he's gone! [Kemmerly] Well anyway, I let him go. Well here comes all of the friends. Well I get into a fight. OK. I get into a fight with this one, I get into a fight with this one [indecipherable] I said not only that if that other one keeps stealing and giving it away I'm gonna let him go. Well he's got a bunch of friends. Now he can't do that. OK. To make a long story short, I fought for about eight months. I let every swinging dick go. OK. Y'all see these knuckles, these are flat, these are kind of sharp. OK. Well any way after about two years down there they kind of took me in. [Kemmerly] One night we had a barbecue in front of the place. Down there [in South Louisiana] each bar has their night to cook. OK. And one night, I had like four barbecue pits inside of the place smoke was everywhere. People drinking beer don't give a shit OK. But anyway I had an [indecipherable] this little motherf****r comes up to me, he said you foreign son of a bitch why don't carry your f***ing ass back North. Well, you know those one hole salt shakers, I said, "what did you say?" So he repeated. I said Wop! [Gestures like he hits something] That mother f***er slid right across the floor and he did not say shit. OK. [Kemmerly] So after about two years they kind of took me in. We was getting along alright. To make a long story short. I was going back and fourth to Shreveport to shoot on Sunday. The Shreveport Gun Club was, everybody who was anybody was at the Shreveport Gun Club. The rich, rich and whatever. I love to shoot you know and so I opened my own little gun club in Jennings. And we shot traps and so and so on. But any way. [Waller] What year is it now? What year? [Kemmerly, index 230] The last year I was there, I went there in '48 and I left in '53. I was there four years. So Anyway, I want to come back to Shreveport. Everybody I knew and liked was there. So I sold my place to a State Policeman. I had a lot of business, I mean, you know I just, down there they drink in the morning and they drink at night and they drink and drink. There is nothing for one person to drink half a case of beer before three o'clock. I mean they drink like they drink water. Hard to believe how much beer they actually drink. Falstaff was the popular beer then and I was buying three-fourths of the Falstaff 's truck out of Lake Charles. Three-fourths of the son-of-a-bitch and that was just one brand. But I do remember that one thing. But anyway. So now we come back and we are in '53. OK. [Kemmerly] So OK we are in '53 and I'm back in Shreveport. OK, so I want to build a motel. Don't know why, but when I was in high school I wanted to build a motel. Is that goofy? So I told different people in high school, I said, "I'm going to build a motel." "I'm going to build a motel." So I always had a motel in the back of my mind some kind of way. So anyway its '53 and I'm looking around Shreveport. Now in '53 or up to '53 Bossier was across the tracks. That was not a no-no land, but it was nearly a no-no land OK and. [Waller] there was only one bridge across the river wasn't there. [Kemmerly] Oh yeah. [Waller] the O.K. Allen? I mean the Texas Street Bridge. [Kemmerly] Yeah, the 220, I mean the I-20 came in later. So anyway, but you see all the clubs were out on the Greenwood road. Ah, there must have been six or seven clubs. And they had one big club in Bossier. The Coronada, the Coronada, Y'all herd about the Coronada? The Coronada was a big, big club. Big, big dance Club. And it was, you know where Barksdale Boulevard and you know where Randy' s trailer town was over here. OK. It was right over in that area. The I-20 took it. [Kemmerly] Anyway, so I'm driving up and down Highway 80 was the I-20 then, in fifty-three. Main artery to Texas and the whole bit OK. So I'm going to Shreveport driving up and down looking for a location for a motel. OK. So anyway. Do you know where Curtis lane goes into 80? [Waller] Right There? [Kemmerly] Right there, you know where? [Waller] where it T's into like that? [Kemmerly] Right. OK. Right across the street I optioned a piece of property to build a motel. And I was going to get the financing from Great Southern Life Insurance out of Houston. I drew up all the plans, I took five years of drafting and mechanical drawing in high school and trade school, I went all the way through, trade school. But anyway, so it just so happened that Mike Maroon, the attorney, had the adjoining piece optioned for a motel. I did not know that. And that is how I met Mike, which ended up being my attorney. Well, they were also trying to get a commitment from Great Southern Life Insurance. Great Southern Life Insurance at that time was financing a lot of motels throughout the country. So anyway, Mike heard about it, and we met, and that is how I met Mike. So anyway, but [indecipherable] I had that option. But, in the meantime I was spending my money that I had sold my place for. So I'm saying to myself after three or four months, I said, "you son-of-a-bitch you better go get you another bar, you ain't going to have no money left." I'm going up and down 80 you know, and so, I'm going over in Bossier and I see all of these cars, that the Shell plant was open then in Minden, the Kickapoo, OK, [to Lucas] you know where the Kickapoo was OK. [Waller] Kickapoo was at the corner [Kemmerly] of 80 and the Benton Road. [Waller] OK. [Kemmerly] OK. You know where the seafood place is. [Lucas] Ron's Sea Fry. [Kemmerly] They had the Kickapoo Restaurant there. OK. But anyway, that was the city limit, OK. So I'm seeing all of these cars every day about five o'clock. I'm talking about three or four blocks long stacked up. Now from the Kickapoo or Benton Road out was nothing, nothing, zero; was fields just like that right there [motions to photograph]. OK. But anyway. [Waller] Off the Benton Road or off of Highway 80? Off Highway 80? [Kemmerly] from the Benton Road to . . . [Waller] Minden . . . [Kemmerly] Minden was just fields. So and like I say Bossier, [pause] everybody in this part of the country, Bossier was kinda of off limits. Now I ain't give a damn a customer is a customer to me. So anyhow that didn't even phase me. If that is the best spot to catch a fish, that is where I'm gonna throw my bait. So anyway. So they had a bunch of signs out there in the fields. [Motions to photograph] Just like that right there in front of you. Sign "For Sale" and it would skip about, you know, a hundred feet or more then "For Sale" Author A. Teague Real estate. Arthur A. Teague was a real-estate man in Bossier at that time. So, I called Mr. Teague up and I said, "Mr. Teague, how much they want for some of those lots? How big are those lots?" He said, "125 feet by 350 feet, but if you buy two, you know, long you get the next one half price." It was $10,000 a lot the next one back and half that and I said hmmm. I said well who owns all that property? He said Mr. Sklar, Mr. Sam Sklar. Well I went to school with Albert Sklar and I said do you mind if I call him? He [Mr. Teague] said no, call him. Funny story, I tell this a lot. I called Mr. Sklar. "Mr. Sklar, this is Merle Kemmerly," I said, "I'm interested in buying one of your lots over there in Bossier." OK. "I understand you want $10,000," [Mr. Sklar] "that is right." I said well would you consider ninety-five hundred." He said, "yes, I'll consider that, call me back next week." OK. Funny story. So next week I call him back, now you got to understand Mr. Sklar, Mr. Sklar made a lot of money, are y'all familiar with Albert Sklar or anything? OK well you do [Motions to Waller] anyway. Mr. Sklar had a pipe place during the war he furnished the pipe or pieces of oil well that is how he made all of his money. So anyway, so I called back Mr. Sklar the next week. I said, "Mr. Sklar, Merle Kemmerly, have you considered that ninety-five hundred?" He said, "yes I have, but the price has gone up to ten-five." I said, well last week you wanted $10,000. I offered you ninety-five hundred. That's right, but he said, the price went up to ten thousand five hundred. I said, well, would you consider ten thousand? He said yes, I'll consider that, call me back next week. So I call him back next week. So I call him back next week, I said, you consider that, he said, yes, but now the price went up to eleven thousand. I said Mr. Sklar, I said, two weeks ago it was ten thousand. I offered ninety-five hundred, right. Now in two weeks time you gone up a thousand dollars, right. I said will you take ten thousand five hundred for twenty-five hundred dollars down? He said yes. Cost me five hundred dollars. So I paid him twenty-five hundred down on that lot. OK. So now I don't have a hellva lot of money left, but I got to build me a building. OK. So I designed the building and the building that the Baptist Church just bought, you know where that, ok. You know where, um, you know where [indecipherable, index 347] that was Kim's, but I built that building. The building I am telling you about the Baptist Church is right there and next to it is Goodwill and next to it [Montgomery] I know where it is now. [Kemmerly] OK that was Kim's that is the building that I am talking about. OK, but nothing was out there but a field. OK. So anyway. I ain't got a lot of money left you know, but I gotta build a building and furnish it and blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I paid twenty-five hundred down. I sold my place in Jennings for sixteen-thousand and I spent about two or three thousand living for a [indecipherable] month, so I ain't had, I don't have a lot of money left. But anyway, I go back there where I am living now and they are building all those, those houses back there so I talked to the foreman and I said, "I need to build a building up there", you know, and I said, I told him where it was and I said, I had my own plan and I built my little plan to scale with all the walls in it, you know, and I love to do, that is what I really like to do. You know, to design. And I had split-levels. Three levels. You could walk up, walk down, walk down, Ok? So I show him my plans, [foreman] "I'll build it for you." Ah, you know, give me one hundred-fifty dollars and I'll just get a carpenter over there you know and that is how I met Harry Heart. Do you . . . [Montgomery] I've heard of the name. [Kemmerly] You know Harry? [Montgomery] I don't know him, I know the name. [Kemmerly] Ok, so that is how I met Harry. Ray, Harry Heart built the Sheraton in Bossier. And he built the Sheraton in ah, Alexandria, he built the Sheraton in Baton Rouge, he built the Sheraton in Tyler, but Harry gets rolling too fast, I mean he, but anyway. He was just a plain carpenter then. So, Harry and I met, real nice. He was a likeable fellow, [indecipherable] so anyway, he, you know, drew out everything on the ground and so we build it. OK, but I' am running out of money, and I still haven't pumped enough money to furnish the place yet. OK. So I go to Murray Durham, Murray had just opened up the National Bank of Bossier and my mother knew Murray through the Optimist Club [indecipherable] when he use to be with the [indecipherable] bank in Shreveport. And he opened up the National Bank of Bossier. So I told him, I said, "Murray, I need to furnish, I'm building a bar out there", you know, and everybody told me then, you are way to far out. You'll never do any good; you are way too far out. I said what about all those cars in the front, I said I got to sell something, you know. They're just stacked up in the front of the place. No you are too far out. Never make it, never make it. OK. So anyway, now you have to understand, me as an individual, I am just a little bit different than the average Joe. I love lights, and I love flashing lights and I love glitter and all of that, you know, and I like that, you know. And so, anyway, uh, I had a waterfall in the place, I had three levels in the place, and it looked knocked out. OK. And it, my, strongest it revolutionized the bar business in Shreveport-Bossier and in this whole area. Then the bar business was men bartenders, men waiters, just blah, bars. Just boom, boom, boom, bar. Bar, bar, bar. OK. Here I come in with the carpet, waterfall, the split-level. I had worked girls down in Jennings. Now when you say girls I don't mean whores, OK. I mean girls. Girl bartenders, girl waitresses on the floor. But when I was in Jennings, ah, if I got rid of the men and I hired some more men and they kept stealing so I said well I'll try some women so that is how I got to using women. So they didn't steal as much. But there was a hotel in Lake Charles, The Majestic Hotel and different people, salesmen would say, man you ought to go see how much business they got at the Majestic Hotel, what do you think is drawing all those people? Well he said the waitresses have got lace, lace skirts and bathing suits on. [Index 400] You know, you could see the legs. You know. So I said, hmmm. I was driving back and fourth to Lake Charles, thirty-seven miles, seven o'clock in the morning for a year because my wife was a nurse and she was working in Lake Charles and we were living in Lake Charles and I'd drive back and fourth. I went to the Majestic and I saw all this business and saw these gals, and I said that looks pretty good. So I hired some girls, two girls. And put some lace skirts and I put bathing suits on them. OK. Now Jennings, I was the only bar in Jennings. Jennings was a clean straight little town, clean, clean. So anyway here comes the business. Looking at these legs. So anyway, one Sunday I was going out to the gun club out there in Jennings, and the preacher came on and said, "there is a bar in town," I'm the only bar, "with naked women." I said, naked women! [End of tape] [Index 412] Oral History Interview of Mr. Merle Kemmerly January 19, 1988 Conducted by Ray F. Lucas, Ray Waller, and Mike Montgomery [Tape 1, Side B, Index 000] [Kemmerly]. . . the place was jammed packed, they wanted to see naked women OK? [Laughter] so you know, so anyway about two or three days later the Mayor came to me and I can still remember him [indecipherable] he said Merle you ain't did nothing wrong but he said everybody is talking about these naked women when that preacher came on the air, he said, I'd appreciate it if you'd put something on them whatever. I said, "I'll be tickled to death to cooperate, whatever, you know, help you out." [Mayor] fine no problem. So anyway, when I moved to Shreveport, I mean Bossier, I put my waitresses with the lace skirts and I had women bartenders and I had the girls with the lace skirts on the floor. I think I started out with four, four waitresses. Well anyway, it just took off like a skyrocket. I mean everybody in this part of the country was talking about Kim's and this and that and I had lights you know it looked real, real good. So anyway, I stayed there for about, oh, two years, ok. So anyway, then we could have high dice boards. [Indecipherable] People would shake, you know what that is, take a cup, the girl behind the bar, and then you have a little table, [indecipherable] Well there was a fella by the name of Spywell [?]. He had all the concessions on the gambling in Bossier and, then we were out in the parish, Willie Waggonner was the Sheriff, was over all of that, because we was in the parish, but he and Spywell had their deal. And that is fine. So, I'm making about, oh, five or six hundred a week you know, and uh, so Spywell said, uh, "[indecipherable] do you want to make a lot of money?" I said, "well you know, to me, ask me if I want to make a lot of money is like asking an alcoholic does he want drink, you know, a bottle of whiskey. Yea, [index 50] fine. OK, so anyway, he says I've got the OK, I can still hear him say, I've got the OK from the highest up, higher up to put in a big gambling place. Well, then I was so green, thought I knew it but didn't know shit. Ah, about anything like that, in this day and time if someone said something, I'd say that's bullshit. So anyway, so, he said well, he said, some real good friends of mine are interested in coming in from Las Vegas and joining in if we will build them a place. Well, I didn't know nothing. I mean nothing about no gambling so, this fella came in from Fort Worth, and I am trying to think of, real nice fella, well he owned a piece of a, either the Horseshoe or, Benny, not Benny Binnion ah, but ah I think it was the Golden Nugget. Nice fella, real nice fella. And they say a lot of people from Fort Worth and Dallas, mainly Fort Worth. Ya see Benny Binnion had the Horseshoe, well his daddy, was from Fort Worth and when Kennedy changed everything that you couldn't put bets across state lines and all of that stuff. They just all through the United States moved into Las Vegas. Ah, big, big gamblers, big, big gamblers out of Galveston ah, moved. They all moved. They just picked up and moved to Las Vegas because the water was cut-off more or less. But anyway, getting back to the story. So there had a little, do y'all remember [oh, don't worry about it] the Washington Youree Hotel? OK. Right across the street from the Washington-Youree on, on Market Street there, they had a little bar. They had real good po-boy sandwiches and stuff like that. Anyway, we met them, I met, I'll think of his name in a minute. And so we were sitting in a booth and I said, "You know what do you have in mind? What you know, what give me an idea of what kind of a club, building [index 100] you know, you want." So I asked the bartender waiter give me a piece of paper. He give me a piece of paper about that big, just a plain piece of paper. And I said I just drew a square I said you know. He said well, we would like to have, you know, the carp tables and the black jack tables down in here, around in here, um you know where they can eat, order food and watch em gamble. Bar. So I'm just drawing you know, That's what I like to do anyway. To make a long story short. I sold Kim's and I put. I sold Kim's for, let me see, I sold Kim's for ninety thousand dollars [indecipherable] to Boyd Campbell and uh, I put about half of the money in this club. Spywell and I were partners. It was called the Holiday Supper Club. [Index 121] And, I'm trying to get my story straight. [Waller] What year is this? [Kemmerly] I would say, I opened Kim's in [19]'54 and I kept it two years, that was [19]'56. I would say that was either [19]'56 or '57. OK. That was out in the parish. You know where the Holiday, not the Holiday. You know where the Town and Country Motel is? All right, right across the street there is a little, it is not quite that far down. Do you have anything right there? [Motions to photographs] I'll be god damned where did you get that son-of-a-bitch. I've been looking for damn a picture. [Lucas] Cliff Cardin got these. [Kemmerly] Who did? [Lucas] Cliff Cardin. [Indecipherable] Where did he get them from? [Lucas] Actually he got these from LSU-S. [Kemmerly] Let me tell you about the Holiday while I got these in front of me. That thing was so. . . . [Waller] that the joint? This the joint? [Kemmerly] Yea, That was so immaculate, look here. Everything on there. I'm really proud of this and I should have been an architect OK. But you see these flowerbeds here, they would, you got a pencil. Let me show you how. There was no plan for this; it was all in my head. I drew those flowerbeds out like this OK. Here is this wall, OK, and will start with this one up in here. OK. [Mr. Kemmerly draws the design for the flowerbeds]. This bed up here was about; no I got it wrong. I got it going in the wrong direction. OK. Now this right here, this bed right here, was about, just say oh, about five feet tall. OK. [Index 156] And this lip came right in here, and this one was about a foot more. And this lip came in here. Each one was about a foot more, you can see the back one its only about two feet tall, but all this was shrubbery. OK. And it had a winding driveway. You could go up on the porch with all [indecipherable] (trizaza?) [Waller] What? [Kemmerly] [Indecipherable] (Trizaza) You know. And they said, "don't spare any money." All the carpet and everything was fifty dollars a yard then on end and I put two rolls of foam rubber underneath it when you'd walk in. Now you'd sink down like a mattress. But I made the kitchen all copper. And the bar, I had it winding around whipped in, a baby piano goes up under neath there. All the top of it was plastic, clear plastic, with butterflies, real butterflies smashed in it. And frosted lights went under neath it. Immaculate son-of-a-bitch. Today, today this would be modern. Today. And that was forty years ago. OK. But anyway. I'll get down to my story. OK. So anyway, so, we go out there and we build the Holiday Supper Club. About October, I know it was a hot son-of-a-bitch, OK. Now we're out in the parish. There is nothing out there. There is nothing out near that place. That should have never been done that way. What I know today, if you'd go to do something like that illegal, you go and find the thickest forests with the tallest trees and you cut a road through that sum-bitch for about three miles with about a series of gates and you don't move any of the trees where the helicopters and everything couldn't take a picture. And that's where you'd build something like that. But anyway. Burt Wakefield was the fella's name, Burt Wakefield. [Indecipherable] Classy. But when you get up into these top, top, top gamblers, they're, they're real, real fine classy people, they're not the kind you shoot crapps with on the side of the road. Buy anyway, so going back, after I met with him, I said, "Now I don't know anything about gambling." But I said, "you know, I'd like to find out what you are talking about." He said, I'll fix you up with about four places to go to South of Houston. And you got to have a number or an OK to get in. OK. So anyway, so he drew some maps. And this one place, it was about maybe ten or fifteen miles South of Houston. Go down here, take a road here, and go down there and take a road, take a road. So it was about five O'clock in the afternoon you know, I said I gotta be lost you know. So I see this place over there with shrubby and trees, you know about twelve-foot high. I can't see nothing. So, but I see a gate there. So I go up and I say, is this the so and so, he said yes, he opens the gate, there must have been a hundred cars, OK, all around this old house. Must have had ten acres, you know. Wow, look at that, you know. So I go in, furs and money, and, everywhere, classy, classy. So I just looked you know, trying to get a little bit of education. So, I leave there and I go to a place, you might of heard of it, the Balinese in Galveston. The Balinese was all down a pier, the Balinese, ah, was owned by, I'm trying to think of some brothers. They moved to Las Vegas. The Balinese had big entertainment. They had neon palm trees inside. The Balinese down in that part of the country was very well known. Big, big time gambling, But anyway. So I look and they is a back room, and is must of had a hundred and fifty people back there gambling. They had four or five crap tables and twenty-one you know. And I'd never seen nothing like this before. You know, my eyes just went. . . money, money, money, money. So I come back and I'm real enthused that, you know we can do something like that here. Didn't know nothing, green, green, greenhorn. So anyway we start building. Well, about October, I told Spywell, you know we need to get our liquor licensee. Didn't even think about, didn't even dawn on us. About a liquor licensee. I said, "you know, we are half way up and we ought to get a liquor licensee." So, OK. So you had to apply to the Bossier Police Jury. So we applied; and there was police juryman called Red Montgomery. You've heard that name before? Red Montgomery. Red stayed drunk. His son has Montgomery Insurance. Red was a big fella, talk, talk, talk, talk. Well I didn't know it until about four years ago when I was in earnest. Joe Bonnamo told me this story. But anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. So we applied to the Bossier Police Jury for a licensee. Now everybody knows what we are going to do. You know, to keep something like that a secret right out there, we were nearly out there in the middle of Highway 80. You know, but that was Spywell, that's where he wanted to put it. He should have known better because I didn't know nothing. I didn't know nothing about no gambling. But anyway, so, ah, Red got up when our application came up before the jury and said, "I understand that they're going to have gambling out there." So there's always a little reporter sitting over there in the corner. So they tabled the licensee. Then it was on the back page. We rock along and we have to wait I think, two or three weeks for it to come back up or a month I forget. Well, in about a week or two later it was in the paper that Red said that his family had been, ah, threatened. This was all just bull-shit, bull-shit, bull-shit. OK, now it's on the front page, OK, now the heat is on. So I'm going to tell you what happened. I don't know, I'm just sitting there going, what's going on, what's going? You know, so to make a long story short, we didn't get a licensee. We did not get a liquor licensee, we can't open it up. [Montgomery] All of your money tied up . . . [Kemmerly] All of the money tied up we owe creditors, and . . . [Waller] How far built was it? [Kemmerly] Oh. [Waller] Three-quarters? [Kemmerly] Just like you see it, [Waller] It was built? It was built? [Kemmerly] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's build but we can't open it. So, Louis Padget was the District Attorney then. And Louis [indecipherable]. I didn't know Louis then, I didn't know nobody. I had Kim's you know and so on and so fourth. Anyway. Louis said don't allow anybody, anyone with any drinks, any bottle, nothing. We opened, but it hurt me so bad I didn't even go to the opening. We had drapes; I'm talking about beautiful stuff now, the whole, all walls. This was a palace, I built a palace. They said build it nice, and I built it nice. They moved a family in from Las Vegas that was gonna run it. OK. They bought the tables. They bought all of that it was stored, beautiful, beautiful stuff. But anyway. Spywell said we'll have to wait. McCraney, a fellow by the name of McCraney was mayor. And he said well, we will have to wait until the city elections and it is taken in by the city and we get a licensee then. I said when is that, he said in April. That is six months from now, so we sat right on our ass for six month. McCraney came in third. A fellow by the name of Cameron became mayor. A straight Joe. But Sam Craig, you heard of Sam Craig, he had this Fountain, you see right there, [points to photograph] that was there in front of it, Ya see, right there the Fountain and we were in the back. OK. So, Sam was sitting up there and, Spywell had I think forty-five thousand dollars in the deal or something like that. So Sam says, you know I'll give you three or four thousand dollars, you know for your part. Spywell takes it and I've Sam for a partner. OK. So he gets a liquor licensee because he tells everyone there ain't going to be no gambling and all that. Turns it into a dance club. Well after about six months or something like that its not going that good. I said Sam; He had a piece of property. [Points to area on one of the photographs] OK, you see the dark right, I mean, you see this Club right here. OK, the Torch, no this one, that is Town and Country, see this was the Sunset, Sam built that OK. But right next to the Sunset they had a strip of land right in there. I think seven or eight. . . , seven acres. I said Sam, Sam owned that, I said, you give me that, give me that piece of land and you have the club. OK, I'll do that. So now I ended up with this piece of land, and uh, its, the Torch is there now. But if you go there now about two or three hundred feet, you'll see they got some trailers. [Waller] so the Torch used to be the Sunset? [Kemmerly] Yea, the Torch, yea used to be the Sunset and I'll tell you a story about the Sunset in a minute. But anyway, so, Sam built the Sunset. So anyway I ended up with this piece of land, seven acres. Now Sam has got the Holiday Supper Club. So about six months latter or something, I had taken out about One hundred twenty-five thousand dollars worth of insurance. With Sinclair Koons. So, now I ended up with this land over there, now Sam got the Holiday all by himself so he dropped about twenty-five thousand dollars insurance. So about six months later, he calls me up. It's about three or four o'clock in the morning. "Hey, boy, you want to see the Holiday burn?" I said, "You son-of-a-bitch! You son-of-a-bitch!" They had a pond right next to it, but it dried up, there was no water. It just burned. So I go out there and see the son-of-a-bitch burn OK. I said, you son-of-a-bitch! He said I dropped twenty-five thousand dollars worth of insurance. I said OK. So anyway. He took the letters, and you can still see those letters right there, two or three of them. You know where the um, on highway 80, uh, you know where the uh, where the uh, High Low. [Montgomery] High Low? Yeah. [Kemmerly] OK, the H is the high, and the O, alright and the black brick, that was black, some of the black fill. That used to be the State Police building and Sam bought that and he took the brick and some of the letters and he made High Low. That's cute. Now let me tell you about the Sunset. That is cute. See the Sunset right here [points to photograph] cute story. I got Kim's OK. There is not anything else in Bossier or Shreveport and I'm knocking'em dead OK. And Sam always use to wear a big white hat, I'm talking a big white hat. And he come down to talk to me you know. He said, come on get in my car I want to show you something. We drive down here and we park right there in the front OK. There is nothing there OK. Nothing. There is nothing there, there's nothing there, nothing OK. We park right there on side of the road and there was two cages where they kept some turkeys and some chickens and one cage was here and one was over here. You know, they was offset maybe two or three feet. He said I'm going to build a bar right there. I said Sam don't do that. I said, "How are you going to build a bar there?" He said, "I'm going to take that chicken net down and then he said, and I'm going to pour a slab on top of those two." I said, "Sam don't do that", I said he had two, three hundred feet in the back there. I said just tare all of that down and you know and just put it in the back there. That is too low anyway. Its, its gonna flood. Anyway, No, no, no, no. I said, "OK, OK." So he was in the plastering business, and I'd go out there at night and he had a bow, chains trying to straighten up those walls and he poured the plaster. That building right there, the walls have got to be three feet thick. And always, most probably still does flood because its built below the ground OK. So that's, and he called it Sunset. You see those things like this? [Points to photograph] Ya see, I had a deal, it's a shame I didn't bring some pictures of Kem's, that's a shame. Kem's was pretty, but I had some things that do all this at Kem's OK. But he put that, those spiked things up there to kind of duplicate, whatever I do, if I'd go pee in the corner he'd go pee in the corner. I mean he just . . . . Whatever I'd do he'd do it. OK. But anyway. That was his first place right there, Sam's place. [Waller] What was Sam's last name? [Kemmerly] Craig. His second place was the Fountain. And so he was in the plastering business so he'd gather up these scraps. So he called me out one day and he said I'm going to build; nothing but, you know, vacant land. He said I'm going to build a bar there. [Waller] Yeah, that is the Fountain. Oh, OK. [Kemmerly] Now the Fountain, was like that, you know. It was shaped liked that. [Mr. Kemmerly is drawing the design on a piece of paper.] Just like that. Highway 80 over there OK. And so he had got some bar joys, little biddy bar joys, like that OK. That is the reason why he made it long like that because these bar joys were only about you know ten feet long. Little biddy. He said I'm going to use those bar joys to make the roof. I said Sam, that won't hold up the roof. Won't hold up nothing. Oh yeah! Anyway. He builds the Sunset, these bricks were, the people who make the cinderblocks, Louisiana doohickey. At one time they were making cement bricks and all of these were scraps, broken that he went back there and just loaded up the truck with just scraps and all these were scraps. [Lucas] He'd make the wall out of them.. [Kemmerly] Yeah, just scraps. OK. Anyway. [Lucas] What year did he build the Fountain? [Kemmerly] Huh? [Lucas] What year did he build the Fountain? [Kemmerly] I would say he built the Fountain around '56 or '57. Right in there. The Fountain was already built when we build the Holiday (Supper Club). And uh, OK. The Fountain was most probably built in '56. Now what you have to realize when I came to Bossier. That the Bossier Police Department consisted to two motorcycles. [Montgomery] Really? [Kemmerly] Ya see Bossier, Bossier wasn't much. You take from the Benton Road to the River all in there, that was Bossier, that was it. But you see, when I came and built Kem's. I loved to advertise and I'm getting ahead of my story I'm backing up back in fourth in my story. But everybody throughout the world knew the Bossier Strip. They didn't hardly know Shreveport, but they knew the Bossier Strip. OK. And uh, I was not after anything to make history, or anything like that its just in me to do what I think to get business. But anyway, from the Holiday, after I bought, traded Sam that land, then Mike and I built, and I designed the Town and Country and built the Town and Country. But they had some partners down in New Orleans and all they'd do, those Italians they'd argue and I said I've got to get my ass out of this son-of-a-bitch and so I got out of the Town and Country in about, I'm thinking '58 or '59 right in there. And Sam had, uh, he and Harry Sutton had the Juke Box in Bossier and so, uh, they had an old building down on 80, which I still owned a part of. And I told Sam, I said, they were arguing, I said Sam, I'll buy that from you but I don't have any money. I put all of my money in the Holiday Supper Club and the Town and Country. . . . [End of Side B, Tape #1] [Tape 2, Side A, Index 000 Merle Kemmerly Interview] [Kemmerly] So anyway, so we go up to the lawyer's office which was Mike Maroon's partner. He owned the first mortgage to this old building. You know where the uh, you know where Tinsley and 80 is? [Montgomery] Tinsley Park? [Kemmerly] Yeah, I dedicated that cut street. [Montgomery] Oh, really? [Kemmerly] Yeah. I should have named it Kemmerly but that [indecipherable] But anyway. Mr. Tinsley was one of the Commissioners and he was a real nice fella, and he asked me if I would dedicate it to him , and I said yeah, you know, there's nothing there, but anyway, I'll tell you a story on that. So, ah, were up at the lawyer's office, Mr. Wilson, and I'm signing all the papers you know I'm buying this property and after we had finished I had worked up a plan how to redo this building. This building had been vacant for maybe two years, big ole rats running through it. I ain't got no money. So, ah [Waller] This is the building where they stored the juke boxes right? [Kemmerly] No they didn't store anything in that thing. [Waller] In fact, the Juke Box man built it [Kemmerly] and Sam Craig. [Waller] OK. [Kemmerly] OK. So, Mr. Wilson said, by the way there are two months notes due. Four hundred a month. I said well, you know just write a check and I said, I'll pay it. Wrote the check and I signed it. We were coming down the elevator I said, man that check is hotter than a son-of-a-bitch I ain't got no money. He ah, you gave him a hot check on the [indecipherable] I said yeah. But anyway I made it good. To make a long story short I went out and started pumping and I pumped forty-five thousand dollars to remodel that building OK, and I didn't have any money to decorate the inside so I got some old burlap sacks and I called it Sacks. OK. [Index #48] [Laughing]. You know, I didn't have no money. [Montgomery] I'd never heard where the name come from. [Kemmerly] Yeah, well you're hearing it, OK. So you know I put these sacks all on the walls you know and neon and you know so and so and I split level that and it turned out great. [Waller] You loved split level, didn't Ya? [Kemmerly] Aw, I love split level , water falls , split levels you know and that's, that's what I liked to do. So anyway. So Boyd got so scared that I was going to take all of his business. I had sold him Kem's. He sold Kem's to Sam, OK. Until he died it was the worse mistake he ever did. OK, so now the Strip is starting to bloom. [Waller] What year is it? [Kemmerly] '58. [Waller] You built Sacks in '58. [Kemmerly] Yeah, I built Sacks in '58 OK. And I'm starting to put neon in lights you know and all that. And, uh, then I was going back and fourth to Las Vegas OK, and they had a deal in Las Vegas, at the Flamingo, big round thing goes up maybe a hundred feet, round circles. [whistles] I said man, I got to get me some of those at Sacks. So I built me a big thing with circles, I'm talking a hundred feet high OK. These circles ran up. That is what I like. Everybody thought that the Mafia was in here, you know because of the Strip and the girls. The Mafia wouldn't give you two-bits, you know they want the gambling you know they want the big money. They wouldn't mess with all that stuff. [Indecipherable] If you want to call it that. But anyway in the mean time, different operators from throughout the country would come and see the action and they'd put a bar, buy a bar and build a club, well, I think we figured up, we ended up with forty-six little bars, big bars, and they worked about two-hundred seventy-five girls. Ok. It was all girls, they were no men bartenders or waiters and all that. And that, at the height of it most probably you could say '65 right in there '70, but see what killed the Strip . . . [Waller] What year was it in its peak? [Kemmerly] I think, '62, '63, '64, '65, '67, '68 right in there. All in the 60's . . . [Waller] '68 was when it started? [Kemmerly] Well you could say '58 [Waller] When they built I-20 did that hurt it? [Kemmerly] That, that killed it. [Waller] Killed it, well that was about, they opened I-20 in about 1967-68. Right in there? [Kemmerly] I think, well they did it in segments. [Waller] Right. [Kemmerly] OK. [Waller] Um, hum. That's right. [Kemmerly] And it didn't hurt until it got over into Bossier. You see. We had around fifty thousand cars on [highway] 80 and those fifty thousand went over there on [Montgomery] I-20. [Kemmerly] You know its about the same thing as you have a duck blind here all the water dries up and the ducks go over there OK. Same thing, and so you know I'd look up and down 80 and there ain't no cars. I said I got to get my ass OUT of this because there's no traffic. I'm not a miracle man, you know, I can't kill no ducks if there ain't no ducks flying, you know. That's when I went over to Shreveport and bought that land, you know I just sold it. [Waller] No? [Kemmerly] I sold it to Ross Bottom and Mr. Printer. And after ten years I'm going to realize nearly a million dollars. [Montgomery] That is great. [Waller] What are they gonna do with it? [Kemmerly] There going to tear all that down and put a big chain restaurant from the east coast and build a Hampton Inn off of I-20. [Waller] Great. [Kemmerly] Ya see I still own the property where Sacks was. So I'm getting twenty-eight hundred a month off of that, I rent it. And that is worth nearly half a million. [Waller] Your not going to realize any money for ten years? [Kemmerly] Oh no. [Waller] Or is it gradually going to build up for ten years? [Kemmerly] I'm holding the first mortgage, I worked on this thing for nearly four months OK. They gave me two-hundred thousand dollars down. [Tape player turned off] [Waller] That is great. Now you got all that money you have got to design and open one last joint, OK one last joint. [Kemmerly] Well let me tell you about the club business, you know I know the damn club business, I know it now. When the boats came in and Shreveport did the six o'clock thing, it went Wop. The people that go to the clubs and bars and stuff like that go to the [casino] boats. The bar business and club business in Shreveport and Bossier is absolutely terrible. Now they do a little bit down on the riverfront on three nights. OK. Down at an auction Saturday, I sold sixteen thousand dollars worth of mirrors, bars, I even sold cinderblocks. They out there right now taking down cinderblocks and everything. [Waller] They are dismantling . . . [Kemmerly] The whole club. [Waller] the Sandpiper. [Kemmerly] Yeah. [Montgomery] Now that was a beautiful, when you remodeled that the last time that was nice in there. [Waller] It sure was. [Kemmerly] Well did you see it when I had the Sandpiper? [Montgomery] Um, hum. That's what I'm talking about. [Kemmerly] With the fireplaces? [Waller] He is talking about the Sandpiper in the early seventies. [Montgomery] In the early seventies, yeah. [Waller] I remember . . . [Kemmerly] Did you see it then? [Montgomery] Um hum. [Kemmerly] That was immaculate. But you see what I did, split level again. It was really too nice for this area. It should have been in Dallas, Chicago, I just did too much. You have to remodel or build according to your clientele, and ah, Shreveport is just a big country town. Now Dallas, Ray can tell you and I can tell you, classy mother-f***er, classy mother-f***er. [Waller] OK back to the Bossier Strip and what other history can you think to ask him about what he knows about the Strip? [Lucas] I've heard that . . . . [Kemmerly] Let me tell him about Sacks and the Strip, because Sacks really put the Strip and everything on the map. I was doing hurricane glasses, OK. I was selling so many hurricanes that we were getting the hurricanes out of Mexico by the car load, I mean a big carload. OK We were selling as many hurricanes as Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans. You know that is a lot. OK. [Waller] You were giving the glasses away? [Kemmerly] We were giving them away. [Waller] I still see your glasses at the Goodwill. [Kemmerly] Yeah, but now they are going up you know. . . . [Waller] They are collector's items now. [Kemmerly] Yeah, but anyway, I had all of my glasses, including my little highball crested in Houston. We ship them out of Mexico , Houston, I was getting all of my crest work done in Houston. Well, all my glasses had "Sacks, Merle Kemmerly's Sacks Whiskey-A-GoGo" and uh, the airmen out of Barksdale would come in, you know, I'd give them a case of glasses. They buy there or four and I'd give them a case. I gave thousands and thousands of glasses away. They'd go to Germany, Italy everywhere. To give you an idea about the Strip in Bossier. We have a live bird shooting gun club every February. OK, but anyway. [Waller] Do you really? [Kemmerly] Oh yeah, big, big, big. [Waller] Well I'll have to come out there. [Kemmerly] Oh, yeah, it will be next month. Big, I mean they come. [Waller] Do you shoot in it? [Kemmerly] Yeah I'll be in it. But they come from all over the world to shoot in this live bird shoot. Hundred shooters. [Waller] Boxed birds? [Kemmerly] Oh yeah. [Waller] Whew! [Kemmerly] So anyway, uh, [indecipherable] Perneithi [?] brought the general manager of the Horseshoe out to the live bird shoot last February. Real nice fellow, so I met him and talked to him and he is from I think from Minnesota. So he said, you know my brother told me to be sure and go see the Bossier Strip. He lives up in Minnesota. Told him, you know when you moved down to Bossier to go see the Bossier Strip. I said well, when I -20 came in it took the Bossier Strip, but that give you a little idea about the popularity throughout the world of the Bossier Strip and what they should have done, but it was in the wrong part of the country, they want to advertise the river front, you know you read stuff about the Shreveport river front this, river front that, bring tourist in, they should have taken the Bossier Strip and done that. And if they had to many girls, just say you can only have five waitress and so on and so on and so. But that was the national publicized thing to do but I mean you couldn't sell that. But, Shreveport was the goody goody guy. Bossier was the bad guy across the tracks. Now Shreveport wants to advertise the nightlife and all of that and bring tourist in and Bossier tightening up, tightening up. How years go and so. [Waller] How important was the B-drinking to the Bossier Strip from '58 to '68? [Kemmerly] Any time . . . [Waller] Critical? Had to have it to make the money? [Kemmerly] Oh, yeah, well you see where I got into trouble, and everybody else but . . . [Waller] What used to be OK, tell me what the girl could come sit with the customers and ask him to buy her a drink? [Kemmerly] What the law is, is that that girl cannot ask the customer to buy her a drink. [Waller] That law has always been on the books? [Kemmerly] Still on the books. [Waller] OK. Did they use to look the other way? [Kemmerly] Right. [Waller] Or the girl could ask when no one told. [Kemmerly] The girls continued to ask. Always asked. [Waller] What back then was a no, no. What could not you do in the clubs along the strip? What would bring the PD [Police Department] the heat. [Kemmerly] The B-drinking. The B-drinking. The prostitution was, they didn't kinda even think about that. The B-drinking which is, B-drinking is like minor, minor compared to prostitution. [Waller] There was a lot of prostitution on the Strip? [Kemmerly] Any time you get that many girls in the bar business you are going to have a lot but . . . [Waller] The operators had girls working for them, they copied you in that respect. [Kemmerly] They had some operators yes. That were taking money from the girls yes. [Waller] No, no, I'm talking about hiring waitresses and hiring girl bartenders, in other words there were no men bartenders much on the Strip. [Kemmerly] No, no, men, no men. All girls. [Waller] So if you went in any of the clubs, there was 60 or 70 clubs in the heyday, you knew you were going to get waited on by a girl? [Kemmerly] Oh yeah, no men. One hundred percent girls. Yeah. [Waller] OK, and as far as the prostitution. The deals were made in the club and the act was consummated maybe out somewhere else? In the motels? [Kemmerly] They had, well you see, what brought a lot of heat on, and this club was one of them OK, the Fountain, I mean the Fountain, OK. There was about four fellas that came in, from Youngstown, Ohio OK. . Youngstown, Ohio is where the DeBartello's are from OK. A lot of influence up there. Anyway, they rented bars, I don't think they owned any clubs. About four of these clubs further down, well they were bring in good-looking girls from in Florida and up in Ohio and I think they were doing some prostitution, drugs, the whole bit. That is when the peak heat came on. [Waller] And in what year do you figure this was? [Kemmerly] I think that was '70, '71 or '72 right in there. Maybe '68 to about '72. [Waller] Who brought the heat down, what legal organization? Parish Sheriff's, State Police the, City Police? [Kemmerly] No, no the way that went was this way and, all during those years I didn't even hear, didn't even know about a district attorney, didn't know the powers of the district attorney. Well Louis Padgett was always the district attorney. Never hear about Louis Padgett, his name was hardly ever brought up. The Sheriff, OK, chief of Police, but never district attorney Louis Padgett. Well it rocks along and word on the Strip is that Louis Padgett is going to run for judge. I don't think nothing about it. Nobody else, Louis Padgett is gonna run for judge. Well that leaves the District Attorney's office open. Now you go way back, this was the way it was and still is. Bossier Politics is ten times stronger and more cut throat than Caddo, Shreveport. In Bossier you have two groups OK. This group here and this group here. Political enemies from way back, way back. The group that was headed by Louis Padgett and um, Joe Waggonner and his brother, Waggoner that was Sheriff . . . [Waller] Willie Waggonner? [Kemmerly] Willie Waggonner and all of that group. In that one, all of them over here. And you have this group over, it goes back to the 1800s some of 'em. [Waller] Who is in this group over here? [Kemmerly] Well, the group over here, ah, you ever hear of Corkey Marvin? Corkey Marvin was from Minden. OK, and I never did know a lot about who was in this group over here, but for years and years it was like the Hatfields and the McCoys. [Waller] What was their bone of contention? What were they fighting over? Just Power? [Kemmerly] Power. [Waller] That's it? Just power. [Kemmerly] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Waller] Was one group more sympathetic to the operators on the Bossier Strip? [Kemmerly] Anything that would get them up. You know, if you knock him down, then you go up, if he knocks you down then he goes up. You know, politics. But anyway, so now. . . [Waller] So one particular operator might be out of favor, in other words, they might be trying to close him down . . . [Kemmerly] I'll get to how all of it works. And I'm sitting back and watching all of the fireworks and don't know really what is going on, but over the years I find out. So the district Attorney's office is open and we are going to have an election. There four, five, six, eight running for district attorney. One of them is Corkey Marvin, I never heard of Corkey Marvin. OK, but he wins. [Waller] What year is this? [Kemmerly] I'm gonna say '66 or '67, I think. So he hires a fella by the name of Henry Brown. I think Henry was down in Baton Rouge of New Orleans or something like that. Corkey was not that bad, but Henry is the damnedest cutthroat, cold hearted person that I have ever know in my life. He liked to kill people, that is a true story, but anyway. So now Henry is his first assistant. So I still don't think much about it. But one of the big crowns in their bonnet would be to shut the Bossier Strip down. OK. So anyway, anyway so, not I'm more or less the king of the strip. You could say. He first goes after these boys [Waller] From Youngstown. [Kemmerly] From Youngstown. And he got a pretty good point there, you know, now I had always had been one to stay in my own backyard. I didn't go up and down to this bar and this bar. I just stayed in my backyard, I couldn't make any money [indecipherable]. So anyway he is fighting back and fourth for about a year or two, he'd arrest them and they'd file suit bickering back and fourth. I'm just sitting down there, you know. So anyway, I had to get out of Bossier, you know, and that is the reason I bought the place over in Shreveport, there was no business. So I had Sacks open over there and I'm in Shreveport. [Waller] You had them both open at the same time? [Kemmerly] Yeah, both of them open at the same time. So my son was just tending bar, we didn't have much business over there. [Waller] in Shreveport? [Kemmerly] In bossier. [Waller] In Bossier. [Kemmerly] Yeah, everything is just about dried up because there is no cars at nine o'clock there's nothing, nothing no cars. So anyway one night he called me and said you know they picked up two nigger girls, I had two nigger waitresses and they were some dancers, they picked up two nigger dancers for prostitution. I really don't think much about it, you know niggers screwing somebody, really wasn't no big deal. So anyway, about a week or two later I got word that Henry was thinking about inditing me. What's he going to indite me for? So Sam had given Henry a lot of money, Sam liked to give everybody money running for office. [Waller] Sam Craig? [Kemmerly] Sam Craig. So I called Sam I said, Sam, Henry's thinking about inditing me. So I go to Sam's house and Sam calls Henry and so Sam said Henry are you thinking about inditing Merle? Well I don't know, well he said he wanted to meet you [Merle Kemmerly] in the morning at your house. So in the morning at about ten o'clock I go to Sam's house and there is Sam and Henry at the coffee table, you know talking. I said now Henry, you know I didn't have a damn to do with those girls out there, I'm over in Shreveport. Well blah, blah, blah, blah, blah , well in about two weeks I got a call from his office that a state investigator wanted to talk to me. So I go to henry's office and I talk to the state investigator and talk for over two hours or more and he kept wanting to know about those boys from Youngstown you know about the dope and the prostitution. I said look, I don't know nothing about those boys, I said, I wouldn't tell you nothing about those boys anyway because they would kill me. But I don't know anything. OK, OK. So he skipped and we talked about this and this, and I said look, I don't do nothing, I don't do dope, I don't do prostitution. I don't do nothing. OK. I keep my nose clean, I'm in Shreveport, OK. Well Henry was going with a little attorney. I can't think of his name. And anyway, he was staying in Henry's building over on Barksdale Blvd., Henry had a little building. So let me go ask Henry, Henry is in court, what does Henry want to do about the case and he came back and he said, Henry said he wants your building for a year. He wants my building. That seems odd. Wants my building. Well it turns out that he wanted his friend to open up a real whorehouse in my building. I said, well tell Henry I'm not going to give him my building. He said, well he said that if you didn't give it, your building for a year he is going to indite you and your two sons. What's he going to indite them for? What's he going to indite me for? Well, I didn't give him the building and he indited me and my two sons. I went to J.B. Wells and I told him. Wow, never seen a court. [Waller] What happened to the boys from Youngstown? [Kemmerly] One drifted this way and one drifted that way after about five years. [Waller] They never indited them? [Kemmerly] No. But now, see, if Henry and Corkey had never come in the picture, that would have never happened. That was all strictly a political deal to boost Henry up. Now Henry claimed he killed the Strip. Henry didn't kill the strip, I-20 killed the Strip. I left, before Henry got there for two years, when I-20 the last segment came in it was just like putting up a barricade on [Highway] 80, detour. [Montgomery] Same reason Kelly's Truck Stop moved from over here . . . [Kemmerly] Same thing, same thing, I remember Kelly telling me he gonna move out on I-20. Well, you know, if I knew then what I know now about the interstate I'd been somewhere, you know. It just happened that that filling station happened to be out there and wanted to sell the property and I bought it. Its just one of those things. But, ah, you know different people knew about interstates going up in North and South and all of that, and they knew how it would just completely vacant whole segments of a city or town or whatever, and you know just dry it up. Well, we were sitting down here, we didn't know all of that. But, ah, . . . [Waller] What do you know about Elvis Presley on the Strip? [Kemmerly] Well Elvis, was staying at then called the Allighta Motel right down the street. Now . . . . [Waller] What year was this? [Kemmerly] That was '54 or '55 right in there. But no body paid a lot of attention . . . . [Waller] Was he playing at the Louisiana Hayride then? [Kemmerly] Right, he'd come in play at the Louisiana Hayride. [Waller] He came in to play the Louisiana Hayride. [Kemmerly] Right. Right, but he was staying . . . [Waller] That was his reason for being here. [Kemmerly] See, Kem's was the place. Kem's was the showplace of this whole part of the country. And, uh, he stayed at that first motel, maybe a block down the street and when he came out with his first record, I don't know, was Heartbreak Hotel his first one? Which one was it, Blue Suede Shoes? We was all kidding him, you know, that's good, you gonna make another one? Well , I don't know. Real nice fella. Peaches and Cream, you know. Everybody patting him on the back and blah, blah, blah. You know. Then when he . . . . [Waller] He was just another entertainer. They had a lot of entertainers in Louisiana Hayride didn't they? [Kemmerly] Shreveport was a hub of entertainment, see. It was big time. [Montgomery] At that time it was, Louisiana Hayride was really [indecipherable] Johnny Hortan, Jim Reeves. [Waller] When Elvis stayed he stayed at the Allighta. [Kemmerly] Allighta. Allighta is the . . . [Waller] Didn't George Nattan, I mean what is the mayor's name, Demment. Didn't Demment manage the Allighta? [Kemmerly] No, no, George Demment [Waller] I thought he was a motel manager. [Montgomery] I think it was the Holiday Inn. [Kemmerly] No, George Demment had some, trying to think. Right off of the corner of ah, Benton Road and 80 coming this way OK, going out, right on that side, North side, was a little building. I think it is still there, and that is the first place where he had a little restaurant thing there a little buffet thing OK, and he went from there and he managed all of the restaurants in the bowling lanes in all over Shreveport. George has always been a worker. Then he went from there to the Holiday Inn over on I-20. There for year and years. Then he went from there, I think down to Many, something like that. Then he came back. Always a hard worker. Good, good fella. But Bossier, I think got a good foothold, without a doubt, through the Bossier Strip advertisers. Without a doubt. If there is any part of history the Bossier Strip should be recognized a hell of a lot more, a hell of a lot more. [Montgomery] If you got any, if you would allow us to copy any of your photographs. . . [End of Side A Tape #2] [Begin Side B, Tape #2] [Kemmerly] Yeah those pictures, yeah I'd be tickled to death, yeah. But you should publicize the Strip, you really got something to publicize. [Montgomery] The Strip was just what you said it was the first thing that Bossier was known for and was known far and wide for. [Kemmerly] Bossier, Shreveport was up here and Bossier was way down here. When I came in on the Strip, built Kem's, it started doing this. It didn't do it in the eyes of Church people and stuff like that, but it did it in the eyes of transients world wide and the more clubs, the more, more, more it got more well known. Shreveport was down in here and Bossier was up in here. Many, many people said, you know, we don't know where Shreveport is, but we know the Bossier Strip. I mean that was kind of an old saying. The Bossier Strip, they put a statue of Ledbetter, they ought to put a statue of me up on Highway 80. [Laughter] [Waller] They should, they really should. [Kemmerly] You know fu**ing a girl or something. [Waller] They really should. I'd vote for that. [Kemmerly] That would be something. [Waller] It sure would. I wish like you say, they could somehow turn a section of the Strip into an entertainment hub and have it like, ah, Memphis and try to do like the river front. [Kemmerly] Perfect. [Waller] Because people know the Bossier Strip, they don't know Shreveport, they know Louisiana Hayride. But not like the Strip. [Kemmerly] I tell you what you could do, and look, I know, I know the public, and I know advertising and I know promotions and so on. What happens if . . . . [someone enters the room and begins speaking inaudibly] yeah OK, an in Reno, you know, they have a big arch, "The Biggest Little City in the World," you know, they had an arch across 80, you know something like at the Benton road, "You are now entering the Bossier Strip," you know and start. Then you would have a large group of people investing. [Montgomery] And it would go hand and glove with the people coming in with the riverboats. [Kemmerly] Be ideal. But, you see what is happened, Shreveport can't go any further, or can't promote because they do not have any parking. OK and, ah, and if you don't have any parking you don't have anything. You know, I'm gonna tell Ya how to really have a entertainment, the Strip, area and so on, if, in other words if OK. But, if they would designate from we'll say the Benton road for two miles call it the Bossier Strip. OK, and that strip could have six o'clock closing like Shreveport. You'd have a lot, millions and millions of dollars spent in that strip. [Montgomery] We were in this room here and they were discussing ah, revitalizing Bossier, I was in it, and I felt like you did, that was the way to revitalize, but that wasn't they wanted to hear, you know. [Kemmerly] Look here, I could tell 'em how to do downtown Shreveport, but they don't want to hear that. They want to do it, oh, they want to d o it the real nice way. [Montgomery] You can't. [Kemmerly] It don't work that way, that's not what its, the entertainment is built on. [Montgomery] No its not, the people , the people who come over for their entertainment are coming over for the club action and things like that. [Kemmerly] That's right. [Montgomery] They are not going to come to a music . . . . [End of Interview] |
People |
Kemmerly, Merle F., Jr. Lucas, Ray Waller, Ray Montgomery, Mike |
Search Terms |
Bossier Strip Gambling Prostitution Liquor Law Night Clubs Oral history |
Lexicon category |
6: T&E For Communication |
Interview date |
1998-01-19 |
Interviewer |
Ray Lucas, Ray Walker and Mike Montgomery |
Recording media |
Cassette Tape |
Lexicon sub-category |
Sound Communication T&E |
Inventoried date |
2025-06-12 |