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Murder, mayhem, booze |
| David Mason and Patricia Fry are the "official"
historians of Ojai. The knowledge each has accrued on our town
is enough to fill several volumes. While Richard Adams, the unofficial
mayor of Meiners Oaks, may not approach the collection of historical
data with the painstaking diligence of David and Patricia, he
knows more about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of this place
than anyone alive. I was amazed during a recent conversation with Richard to discover Ojai was more Dodge City than Shangri-La. What you're about to read here is not a snippet from an old John Wayne or Randolph Scott script but the real McCoy that transpired in our famous Arcade in 1919, one year after World War I ended. What is now the Primavera Gallery was at one time, Ojai's most colorful establishment, a combination pool hall and saloon. It was not a spot patronized by respectable ladies or cosmopolitan men. But, according to Richard, it was a flourishing enterprise, which should surprise no one as mankind has always had a proclivity to ferret out temptation. One of the habitual patrons of the Ojai Pool Hall was Bill Soule, who was the brother of Zaidee Soule, early Ojai's librarian and the benefactress of our own Soule Park. Bill's penchant for booze stamped him as one of the town's notorious drunks. Embarrassed by his behavior, his family asked the pool hall to cut off his credit and to serve him nothing but water. Not knowing of the restrictions placed on both his credit and spirit consumption, Bill entered the pool hall-saloon for a drink and was rejected by Sid Houck, who was attending the bar. Bill persisted and Sid was equally adamant. A few unpleasantries quickly escalated into some harsh exchanges and Bill left in a huff, returning later - with a gun. All hell broke loose as he fired the first shot, winging Sid in the arm. With a hair-trigger sense of self-preservation, Sid ducked under the counter, while simultaneously reaching for a pistol. He fired one shot. Proving himself an accomplished marksman, he ended the whole fray with a bullet in the heart of his assailant who toppled onto the floor dead. It was a bit of excitement for a one-horse town and someone had the presence to walk, or maybe even run, down the block to what is now the office of Ojai Realty, and which at that time contained the court room and office of this town's law keeper, Judge Boyd Gabbert. "A real judge?" I asked Richard. "No, I think only a justice of the peace, but he was the law authority here as the county didn't seem to have much interest in Ojai's affairs." "And then what happened?" "He took one look at the corpse and the gun on the floor and one look at Sid's wound and knew exactly what happened. No arraignment, no trial. Case closed." My friend Katherine Kiehl was born in here in 1911, when the town was called Nordhoff. Shortly after birth, her family moved to Ventura and commuted here on Sundays via a horse-drawn wagon to attend services at the Wesleyan Church. She was 3 years old when she moved back here. During a recent visit I asked if she knew about the pool hall episode. Indeed she did. She was an 8-year-old grade school girl when it happened. Being curious about all the tumult emanating from the pool hall she stepped in and got the shock of her life seeing the mess on the floor. Thankfully, the corpse had been removed. "I don't know what I would have done had I seen the dead man lying there," Katherine said, "and my mother was so upset for my going into that place she had a fit." "I can understand," I replied. "After all murder, mayhem, and booze may be ingredients for a good detective novel, but certainly not conducive for the health and education of a church-going young lady." "Well, I wanted to see what was going on." "A perfectly normal reaction," I said. "Did your mom ever forgive you?" "I think so. But she never forgot." So, to all of us Johnny-come-latelies who have been here for less than 80 years, we must face up to the fact Ojai is not quite the Shangri-La we like to think it is. |