In 1995 I interviewed Reuel Miller, who was then 96, for a story about Ogden's really evil, awful, illegal and massively fun past.
I'm doing a walking tour of 25th Street for the Sociology Club at WSU this afternoon and dug it out for tidbits to share. Here's the whole story. The text program, for some reason, didn't retrieve the punctuation, but it's all pretty clear.
And, no, I am NOT going to explain about the lady and the donkey.
HE LIVED THE OGDEN MOST PEOPLE TRIED TO IGNORE
news
by
By CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN He saw the Ogden
Lyceum Theater's act with the lady
and the donkey and that's all we're
going to tell you about that story,
this being a family newspaper.
Which is OK. Reuel Miller has
lots more.
He could outwalk the first car he
saw in Ogden, dug the first irriga
tion ditch in his neighborhood and
helped make sure graft got collected
properly from 25th Street bootleg
gers as a special policeman for
Mayor Harman Peery.
Or so he says.
He even knows why there used to
be little cans of pea gravel on the
sidewalk on 25th Street, and we
know you've been wondering about
that.
Miller, who turned 96 in Febru
ary, lived a life that parallels Ogden
in the first 100 years of Utah's
statehood, and his stories certainly
have the depth, color and detail of
truth. Also, there's few left to con
tradict him.
Those years weigh Miller down.
He still gets out into the garden
and he still makes wine every fall.
But his hands shake, his eyes are
going and he tends to totter a bit
when he walks.
He's disgusted by the whole pro
cess. Ask him if he wants to make
100 and his answer is a quick
Lord, I hope not!
I hate getting old, he says often.
I'm so clumsy, and he says it
with the attitude of one irritated
with a tool that just won't work
right anymore.
That tool worked just fine for a
very long time. He was born Feb.
22, 1899, on a farm in Plain City.
He had his arm stomped by a
horse, went to school a total of two
weeks, built several of the houses in
his neighborhood on 16th Street
and painted much of Ogden at one
time or another.
If the body is aging, though, the
memory of all it went through isn't.
I've got the damndest memory; I
can see it all now, he said.
There's plenty to remember. He
was right in the middle of Ogden's
last big blast, the 30s and 40s, when
prostitution, gambling and liquor
were easily found commodities on
25th Street, the police looked the
other way and the mayor said he
liked it that way.
Miller helped make the town
what it was. It was in the mid-
1930s when he got a job with some
thing called the American Detective
Association.
The American Detective Associa
tion had an interesting line of busi
ness, he said. In addition to the
usual stuff an ad from the peri
od offers Legitimate Detective Ser
vices, and Miller said they did
follow cheating wives it sold
signs to the bars in town that said
This establishment protected by
the American Detective Associa
tion.
The signs cost $50 at a time when
50 cents would buy lunch. If you
think there was something fishy go
ing on, you're right.
Those bars were breaking the law.
Utah, after Prohibition, had set up
state liquor stores and bars were
only supposed to sell beer. Ogden's
Mayor Harman Peery felt the local
bars should be allowed to sell li
quor anyway, and many of them
did so.
Miller said the sign meant that
the bars wouldn't get raided by
state police trying to stop the sale
of hard liquor. The American De
tective Agency had connections, he
said. It knew when raids were com
ing, and would warn the bar own
ers when it was time to clean up
their acts.
I sold to all the bootleggers, he
said. They grabbed it fast.
It was a great deal. The bootleg
gers could get their valuable booze
out of the way. If agents seized the
place and shut it down anyway,
there was no problem: The fixtures
would be auctioned and we'd go
to the auction and out-bid every
one, Miller said.
The next day they'd open up
again just like normal.
If the police really needed to ar
rest someone, the agency provided
them with a victim, a well compen
sated guy who didn't mind sitting
in a cell while the real bar owners
went about their business.
That's what we done. A little
crookedness, but we took care of
our people.
One place he went to sell his
signs, he said, was Mayor Peery's
office.
Peery, mayor of Ogden from 1934
to 1939 and several times again lat
er, didn't publicly support the graft
and corruption in Ogden, but he
did say he thought the state's liquor
laws were wrong and was often in
dispute with the state over them.
He was also an old family friend of
Miller's, his mother having bought
20 acres of land from him years be
fore.
He opened the door; I come in
there and he wanted to know what
I wanted, Miller said. Miller told
him about the signs and what they
did, and he says I want to buy
that. I want that on my buildings.
The next day, he said, Peery
called Miller back to his office. He
walked over to me, stretched out
his hand to me, pulled out my coat
and pinned a badge on me, he
said, making him a special police
man.
His duties were simple. Miller
said Peery's administration allowed
gambling and the sale of liquor in
exchange for fees. Those fees
were collected by the police, and it
was Miller's job to make sure the
collectors were being honest.
Typically, he said, he'd station
himself outside the bar when the
collector he was following would go
in.
He'd go in the bootleg joint and
he'd come in and pat his coat pock
et and they'd give him a cigar, he
said. He'd pat his jacket pockets
and they'd give him one of those
Chinese match boxes, and he'd go
out and take money out of it and
put it in a folder.
It was Miller's job to see how
much was collected. I couldn't
touch them, but I had to put every
thing down on paper and hand it in
to Harman Peery every night, he
said.
Another duty was to collect the
bad checks that people gave
madams and bootleggers from time
to time.
One check, he said, was from a
farmer out near Tremonton who'd
had quite the party at one of the
houses on the street and his $200
check bounced. Miller said he
drove out to the man's farm and
found the man more than happy to
make the check good, just as long
as Miller would stay far away from
the farm, and the farmer's wife.
Which he did. No need in causing
trouble.
For all the graft that went on at
the time, Miller has nothing but
positive things to say about Mayor
Peery. He took his percentage, he
said, but that's all. To my way of
thinking he's the finest mayor that
ever hit this bitching city, he said.
What about those buckets of pea
gravel on 25th Street?
Easy, he said. If a man was
looking for a little female compan
ionship in one of the rooming
houses on the street, but was ner
vous about going inside, he'd take a
few pieces of gravel out of the can
and toss it at the second floor win
dows. If the occupant was avail
able, she's open the window and
ask him up.
After quitting Peery's employ and
that of the American Detective
Agency he went to work as a paint
er around town. His life settled
down to a lot of wheeling and deal
ing of property on 16th Street, and
he made as much money doing that
as he did painting houses.
One thing that he still laughs
about is the time he came down
with lead poisoning from the paint
and nearly died. The doctor gave
him only months to live, he said.
So, said Miller, he took to drink
ing wine on a pretty regular basis.
What the heck, right?
Well, three months later his
symptoms disappeared, leaving the
doctor flummoxed and Miller feel
ing pretty cocky. The doctor later
died, but Miller still keeps track of
him.
I'm still here and the doctor's
still dead, he said.
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