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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023 Issue 1 - The Roadhouse Murder.pdfThis special newsletter is a gift to our biggest supporters: Benefactor, Patron, Business, and Life members. Your support makes what we do possible. We hope you enjoy this story from Renton's past. When Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, alcohol became legal again and a new era of social drinking, dancing, and darker forms of fun arose during the Depression. The newly formed Washington State Liquor Control Board did its best to “protect the welfare, health, peace, morals, and safety of the people of the state,” with regulations designed to protect against public drunkenness, driving under the influence, and prostitution, some of the ills that provoked Prohibition in the first place. Many of these problems centered on the roadhouses that sprang up just outside the reach of Renton and Seattle law enforcement. These roadhouses multiplied like mushrooms along the new highways that catered to American car culture in the 1920s and 1930s.1 On June 10, 1933, Fred Anrooney signed a ten- year lease for Peoples Park at Renton Junction for $75.00 a month.2 Perhaps Anrooney had followed the debates in Congress and anticipated a gold mine at the end of About This Issue... Continued on page 3 THE ROADHOUSE MURDER by Elizabeth P. Stewart RENTON HISTORICALSOCIETY & MUSEUM Special Issue February 2023 Volume 54 Number 1QUARTERLY 2 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM Special EditionFebruary 2023 MUSEUM REPORT Elizabeth P. Stewart Director T he Museum starts 2023 deeply involved in the process of re-working the operating agreement between the Renton Historical Society and the City of Renton. The pandemic threw many things we had taken for granted into question and now we are working our way back to a new, better path forward. Things will be in flux for a while longer, but we will continue to bring you excellent research, exhibits, programs, and publications now and in the future. To that end, we are actively recruiting volunteers to help us with museum operations, particularly opening the Museum on weekends. Until we staff up a bit more, we are committed to opening up every third Saturday for FREE (although we always welcome your gift in the donation box). If you’re interested in volunteering, please give Stephanie a call or email and she will walk you through the available volunteer opportunities. In the meantime, we appreciate all the support from members, donors, and volunteers— we can’t do what we do without you! by Elizabeth P. Stewart, Museum Director We were thrilled to welcome back to our space the Parks & Recreation Department Boards and Commissions Holiday Party in December 2022. Thank you, Mayor Armondo Pavone, Parks and Rec Administrator Kelly Beymer, and all Commissioners and Board members for your hard work in 2022! Cover photo: Lonely Acres Tavern, ca. 1934. (Courtesy Puget Sound Regional Archives, Bellevue College.) RENTON HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Pritchard Design Graphic Design & Layout Karl Hurst City of Renton Print & Mail Services RENTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES Dan Clawson, President Don Hunsaker III, Treasurer Robert Wilson, Secretary Elizabeth P. Stewart, Board Liaison MUSEUM STAFF Elizabeth P. Stewart Museum Director Stephanie Snyder Volunteer & Member Liaison RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 MILL AVENUE S RENTON, WA 98057 P (425) 255-2330 F (425) 255-1570 E rentonhistorymuseum rentonwa.gov HOURS: Tuesday - Friday 10:00am - 4:00pm ADMISSION: $5 (Adult) $2 (Child) Members always FREE SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2023 | 3 Prohibition. A musician and music store operator, he was ready to branch out into something more lucrative. The People’s Park property included a dance pavilion and restaurant or tavern. He opened Lonely Acres Tavern sometime in 1934, right off what is now West Valley Highway, not far from Longacres Race Track. Peoples Park had been a gathering spot at Renton Junction since the 1910s. On the Interurban train line and nestled in a bend of the Green River, the park was the perfect spot for fraternal organization picnics and political gatherings. As early as 1920 groups as diverse as the American Slavic Benevolent Federation of Washington, Seattle Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, the Italian Commercial Club, and the Swiss Sportsmen’s Club held events there. Many of the events had a more radical tilt, too, with events organized by the Seattle Metal Trades Council, International Labor Defense, and the Workmen’s Circle of Seattle; national rabble-rousers like the IWW’s Big Bill Haywood and steel strike organizer William Z. Foster spoke there.3 A little bit remote, Peoples Park seemed like a hospitable place for everyone from Jewish Socialists (Workmen’s Circle) to Black Republicans.4 So Fred Anrooney had picked a great location: not too far from Seattle and Renton, easily accessible on the old Seattle-Tacoma Highway, but outside the jurisdiction of Renton police, so if he slipped a little with liquor law compliance, few would notice. The building he took over was originally “one of the most elaborate” chicken dinner restaurants in the area, built by Renton architect Max Thorne and contractor George W. Custer in 1930.5 A huge sign on top of the tavern could be seen from either highway approach; it read “Lonely Acres Dine and Dance,” and four neon racehorses galloped across it. Inside, imitation cedar logs decorated the ceiling.6 After Prohibition, restrictive laws governing alcohol in Washington state still barred the serving of hard liquor. Women were not permitted to order their own drinks or stand at the bar, and all patrons had to be seated while drinking.7 Anrooney staffed his roadhouse with numerous female servers to provide extra attractions for male drinkers. Although he was on his third marriage and had a young daughter at home, nevertheless Anrooney had a soft spot for pretty women. He hired twenty-three-year-old Marlene Townsend Collier as a “barmaid” in February 1937, at a low point in her life; separated from her third husband and jobless, she was also without a regular address. Born Wilda Rae Marlene Townsend, she married for the first time at age 16. She was young and a bit lost, changing her first name with each different husband and working jobs briefly in between marriages. Collier had reportedly known Anrooney for three years, although it is not clear how.8 Her new boss offered to let her stay in the back bedroom of the tavern when she was not working; he occasionally slept in a room across the hall instead of going home. Hiring Collier may have been part of a Lonely Acres improvement plan for 1937. Anrooney hired more staff and secured a performance by a nationally famous jazz musician, Earl “Fatha” Hines, for July 19. Hines and his orchestra were touring the West Coast, and Anrooney’s music connections may have enabled him to snag Hines for a special dance—in the language of the day—“for the benefit of colored patrons” at Lonely Acres.9 The month before, Lonely Acres also hosted “a mammoth picnic” for the All-Colored Democratic Clubs of King County.10 These events catering specifically to Black audiences were widely publicized, and given the racial tensions of the 1930s, they may have led to some mysterious phone calls received at the roadhouse in mid-July. A male voice threatened to attack Anrooney.11 Nestled in a bend of the Green River, People Park also had a pavilion and a few guest cabins. By 1954 it had been renamed “Club New Orleans.” (1954 Kroll map, 327E.) Continued from page 1 4 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM killed him. She called Renton police and confessed what she had done. “There’s a murder here,” Collier screamed over the phone. “I shot a man!”15 She phoned her parents and then went to one of the cabins behind the tavern to ask waitress Velma Hurtgen to sit with her and wait for the police. Renton Police officers Fred Ilian and James Chadwick responded about 2:30 a.m., along with a State Highway Patrol Officer and several deputy sheriffs.16 They found Fred Anrooney “sprawled in the tap room of his resort,” in his bathrobe and underwear, with a gunshot wound to the right chest. Shotgun pellets were also embedded in the piano and the door frame. “Sobbing hysterically,” Collier told sheriffs that Anrooney’s jealousy had finally got the better of him; her boyfriend, Russell Ringer, had visited her at the tavern that evening after Anrooney had barred him. “He was terribly, terribly jealous,” she told officers. “I worked for him… but I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He was crazy mad whenever any younger fellows would even joke with me.”17 When he broke into her bedroom, she had fired the shots in self-defense, not to kill him, but to repel him.18 Marlene Collier was held in jail August 1 – 21, and then posted bail, with the support of her parents, F. L. and Mary Townsend.19 Even as the prosecutor investigated, Collier’s story did not waver. He uncovered some other salient facts: other women At 55, his growing deafness made him fearful that he would not hear someone breaking in, so he purchased a sawed-off shotgun and asked Collier to keep it at night for protection.12 Holdup men and burglars often targeted roadhouses, flush with cash and in remote locations, and Lonely Acres was no exception.13 The events of the night of July 31 are extensively documented in newspaper accounts and transcripts of lie detector interviews. Marlene Collier’s story—told to police, the prosecutor, Chief Deputy Coroner, and at trial—never changed; other witnesses added detail. After closing up for the night, Collier and Anrooney went to their separate rooms. She was awakened at about 2 a.m. when her boss broke into her room and “tried to make love” to her. She pushed him off and fired a warning shot into the piano stored in her room. He left and she tried to go back to sleep; apparently his advances were not that unusual. But this night he was more determined. As she described it: Fifteen minutes later he was turning on the light and standing there in the door looking at me and saying: “You’d love me if it wasn’t for somebody else.” “If you don’t get out of here, I’ll shoot,” I told him. He just stood there and laughed. He thought I was bluffing. He started for the bed and I fired.14 She meant to fire a second warning shot, but when she found him dead behind the bar, she realized she had Lonely Acres was just across the Renton Junction bridge, an idyllic setting but still easy to reach by car. (#2002.001.5791, Collection of the Renton History Museum.) SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2023 | 5 employees had experienced similar harassment and Anrooney had told some that he planned to fire Collier after her shift, perhaps for defying his insistence that she keep her boyfriend away.20 Prosecutor B. Gray Warner was convinced that Collier was lying, however, and he employed Seattle criminologist Luke S. May to examine the evidence. He and May toured the crime scene to see whether physical evidence matched her story, and, most controversially, May conducted a lie detector test on Collier’s friend Russell Ringer.21 The prosecutor had originally asked Dr. Stevenson Smith, head of the University of Washington psychology department, to administer the polygraph, but the test was already suspect enough among criminologists that Dr. Smith declined, calling it “a publicity stunt.”22 Luke May, “America’s Sherlock Holmes,” was never one to miss an opportunity to advocate for “scientific” criminal investigation methods.23 Warner’s theory was that Ringer had shot Anrooney and Collier was covering for her boyfriend; under relentless questioning, Ringer insisted that he had been in bed asleep at his sister’s house when Anrooney was shot. He related the events of the evening: a visit to Johnny Denison’s Barber Shop in Renton, then the White Spot, Lonely Acres, the Pheasant Inn, back to the barber shop, back to Lonely Acres, and finally home at about 12:30 pm—just a couple of guys cruising around.24 Ringer passed the polygraph and charges of second-degree murder were filed only against Collier. Her trial opened on May 2, 1938. Her defense attorneys argued that Anrooney’s killing was an “honor slaying,” an action necessary to protect her “life and honor” from the drunken man’s advances. When he awakened her by breaking down her door, the defense argued, she had no way of knowing what he might do; when he came back the second time, after she had fired a warning shot, “she fired to protect herself.”25 The state introduced a series of witnesses—other female employees mainly—who testified that Collier and Anrooney had repeatedly quarreled, suggesting that she had shot her boss in anger. But some of the same witnesses related their histories with Anrooney’s sexual harassment. Jean Ruebenack testified that, “Anrooney paid so much attention to me and bothered me so much that I quit after working three days.”26 Three other employees described similar predatory behavior.27 Marlene Collier took the stand on the fourth day of the trial. Again, she described the events of that Jazz great Earl “Fatha” Hines played at Lonely Acres just two weeks before the crime. (Ad, Tacoma News Tribune, 15 July 1937.) Marlene Collier depended on her parents, F. L. and Mary Townsend, throughout the trial. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10 August 1937) 6 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM evening for the jury, a tale that must have been difficult for Anrooney’s widow to hear. While Collier did admit she had gone out with him socially, she insisted that “she had repulsed all advances.”28 “The look in his eyes was terrible,” she told the jury. “I thought he must be drunk.”29 At that moment, she said, “I was just scared to death. I thought it was my life or his.”30 Closing arguments summarized the opposing viewpoints of this crime. Deputy Prosecutor Charles Ralls raised doubts about whether Fred Anrooney was turning away to leave Marlene Collier’s bedroom when she shot him; if he had been leaving the room, neither her life nor her virtue was in danger. But Defense Counsel John J. Sullivan made a dramatic argument in stark terms. “The wages of sin is death—and no man went to his death more deservedly than did Anrooney,” he told the jury, quoting the Bible. “Marlene should die, if necessary, or take a life, if necessary, to protect herself from a beast.”31 The jury took only 90 minutes to deliberate before acquitting Marlene Collier of any crime. Hearing the verdict, she jumped up, ran to the jury box, and personally thanked each juror. She hugged her parents and her brother, who had attended every day of the four-day trial, and prepared to walk out of the courtroom, into a new life. But first she gave a thought to the widow, Florence Anrooney. “I feel sorry about her,” Collier said. “She has been so swell.”32 Epilogue: Florence Anrooney was stuck with her husband’s lease on Lonely Acres after his death. The Peoples Park & Amusement Association sued her for back rent and for violating the terms of the lease agreement by subletting it to a tenant who opened a skating rink there. Florence remarried twice after her husband’s death, once in 1941 and again in 1945. She died in San Diego in 1999. Russell Ringer moved to Mississippi where he opened a grocery store in Pass Christian and became a community leader. Marlene Townsend Collier divorced her third husband in 1939; she married her fourth and final husband, Louis Sauer, in Tacoma in 1947. She and her husband lived in Bremerton until her death in 1986; they had two daughters.33 As for Lonely Acres, its reputation for heartache continued. Mrs. Hilda Koning operated the tavern when she was assaulted and robbed by two men in September 1939, weeks after a seven-year-old girl drowned in the Green River nearby. Randall “Curly” When they arrived on August 2nd, police found tavern-owner Fred Anrooney behind the bar. (Crime scene photo from the murder of Fred Anrooney, File #1144, Luke S. May Papers, Box 25, University of Washington Libraries.) SPECIAL ISSUE QUARTERLY, 2023 | 7 ENDNOTES 1 Ruth Priest Dixon, “Genealogical Fallout from the War of 1812,” Peter Blecha and Brad Holden’s book Lost Roadhouses of Seattle (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2022) has an excellent explanation of the rise of roadhouses and their connection to car culture and Prohibition. 2 Peoples Park & Amusement Association, Inc. v. Anrooney, 200 Wash. 51, 93 (1939). 3 “Slavic Organizations At Renton Junction Saturday, May 16th,” Renton Chronicle, 14 May 1935, p.1; “Seattle Chapter, O. E. S., Picnic,” Seattle Star, 11 August 1922, p.12; “Italian Business Club Will Hold Picnic Sunday,” Seattle Times, 3 August 1934, p.7; “Swiss Rasslers to Do Stuff Saturday,” Seattle Star, 17 August 1939; “Wm. Z. Foster Next Sunday,” Labor Journal (Everett, WA), 27 August 1920, p.4; “Free Political Prisoners” handbill, International Labor Defense, 31 May 1931 (Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, #2016.11.55); “Picnic and Dance” handbill, Workmen’s Circle of Seattle, 17 July 1932 (Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, #2012.18.66); “Haywood to Speak Here,” Seattle Star, 2 July 1920, p.1. 4 Cayton’s Weekly (Seattle WA), 14 August 1920, p.2. By 1928 the Interurban lines were abandoned, but the Renton Junction name stuck. 5 “Building Highway Inn,” Renton Chronicle, 8 May 1930, p.1. 6 King County Tax Assessor, Property Record Card, tax lot #42 (Puget Sound branch, Washington State Archives, Bellevue, College). 7 Blecha and Holden, Lost Roadhouses of Seattle, 18. 8 “Warner Hits Secrecy in Death Quiz,” Seattle Times, 2 August 1937, p.5. 9 “Swing King for Oakes,” Tacoma News Tribune, 18 July 1937; “Hines’ Orchestra to Play Monday at Lonely Acres,” Seattle Times, 17 July 1937, p.4. 10 “Democratic Clubs Sponsor Big Picnic,” Northwest Enterprise (Seattle, WA), 18 June 1937. 11 “Warner Hits Secrecy,” Seattle Times, 2 August 1937, p.5. The identity of the caller remained a mystery; the male voice claimed to be “the law,” but mentioned Collier by name, so the prosecutor assumed it was her boyfriend, Russell Ringer, or another admirer. Police also speculated that the calls were made by an unnamed man with whom Anrooney was in business. 12 “Warner Hits Secrecy,” Seattle Times, 2 August 1937, p.5; “Tavern Owner is Killed,” Seattle Star, 2 August 1937. 13 “Man Held for Taking Badge,” Seattle Star, 18 May 1937; “Two Accused of Beating, Robbing Tavern Owner,” Seattle Times, 8 September 1939, p.12; “Roadhouse Portals Swing While Hodge Extols Own Merits,” Seattle Times, 29 September 1912, p.5. As early as 1923, King County Sheriff Matt Starwich called for special legislation that would regulate and license roadhouses and dances held outside city limits. “Matt Starwich Seeks 2 Laws,” Seattle Star, 16 January 1923, p.1. 14 “Warner Hits Secrecy,” Seattle Times, 2 August 1937, p.5. 15 “Tavern Owner is Killed,” Seattle Star, 2 August 1937. 16 “Warner Hits Secrecy,” Seattle Times, 2 August 1937, p.5. 17 “Tavern Owner is Killed,” Seattle Star, 2 August 1937. 18 “Tavern Owner is Killed,” Seattle Star, 2 August 1937. 19 “Mrs. Collier’s Answer to Court’s Charge to Be Made in Week,” Renton Chronicle, 22 August 1937, p.1. 20 “Tavern Slaying Quarrel Told,” Seattle Times, 3 August 1937, p.2; “Quizzing of Girl Delayed,” Seattle Star, 3 August 1937. 21 “Lie Detector Is Being Prepared for Test in Tavern Slaying,” Seattle Star, 6 August 1937, p.2; Stuart Whitehouse, “Tavern Killing Charge Likely,” Seattle Star, 7 August 1937, p.1. 22 “U. Professor and Coroner Oppose Use of Machine,” Seattle Times, 5 August 1937, p.1; “Inquest in Case Called Off,” Seattle Star, 5 August 1937; “Luke May Retained in Tavern Slaying,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6 August 1937; “Luke May’s Machine to be Used,” Seattle Star, 6 August 1937, p.2. Coroner Otto Mittelstadt also opposed use of a lie detector; he preferred that a coroner’s inquest be held to establish whether Collier’s actions were justifiable. 23 May relocated to Seattle in 1919 and established a lab that provided analysis to police departments and other government agencies before they had in- house laboratories. He was a tieless advocate for forensics and scientific method as applied to crime scenes. He was also a regular contributor to True Detective Mysteries magazine. “Luke S. May,” Essay No. 4241, HistoryLink. org, accessed at https://www.historylink.org/File/4241. 24 “Statement of Russell Thomas Ringer, August 3, 1937,” Luke S. May Papers, Box 25, Folder 1144 (University Libraries, University of Washington), p. 4-9; “Polygraph Backs Ringer’s Story; He’s Truthful, But Stays in Jail,” Seattle Times, 8 August 1937, p.1. 25 “Defense Given in Tavern Case,” Seattle Star, 3 May 1938, p.2. 26 “Witnesses Strengthen Girl’s Case,” Seattle Star, 4 May 1938, p.1. 27 “Witnesses strengthen Girl’s Case,” Seattle Star, 4 May 1938, p.1; “Mrs. Collier Tells How She Slew Employer in Her Room,” Seattle Times, 4 May 1938, p.4. These employees were: Jean Ruebenack, Reba Perry, Lillie Neubauer, and Mabel Hanson. Lillie Neubauer testified that Anrooney conducted her job interview in two highway taverns over glasses of beer. She later declined the job. He promised Mabel Hanson a fur coat “if [she] would be nice to him.” 28 “Girl Slayer Tells of Shooting,” Seattle Star, 5 May 1938. 29 “Mrs. Collier Tells How She Slew Employer in Her Room,” Seattle Times, 4 May 1938, p.4. 30 “Girl Slayer Tells of Shooting,” Seattle Star, 5 May 1938. 31 “Jury Frees Mrs. Collier of Slaying Tavern Man,” Seattle Times, 6 May 1938, p.9. 32 Mrs. Collier Acquitted By Jury,” Seattle Star, 6 May 1938, p.1. 33 Peoples Park & Amusement Association, Inc. v. Anrooney, 200 Wash. 51, 93 (1939); “Widow Granted Property,” Seattle Times, 11 June 1938, p.8; “Russell T. Ringer,” Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi), 26 April 1993, p.2; “Marlene Collier Granted Divorce,” Seattle Star, 27 December 1939, p.7; “Marlene Sauer,” The Sun (Bremerton, WA), 10 May 1986. 34 “Child, 7, Feared Drowned in River,” Seattle Times, 25 July 1939, p.1; “Two Accused of Beating, Robbing Tavern Owner,” Seattle Times, 8 September 1939, p.12; “Curley Weitzel Opens Lonely Acres Tavern,” Renton Chronicle, June 1940; Property Record Card, Tax lot #42 (Puget Sound branch, Washington State Archives, Bellevue, College). Weitzel, former owner-operator of the Triple XXX Barrel at Angle Lake, tried to re-open Lonely Acres in summer 1940, without much success. In 1942 it was the gathering point for Japanese in south King County before they were removed to incarceration camps. In 1945 optician Dr. Ansley Bates purchased the property, and in 1954 Club New Orleans was located there, on the property then owned by George W. Cook and Paul Coles. The tavern, pavilion, and cabins were torn down in 1965.34 Marlene’s boyfriend Russell Ringer easily passed Luke May’s polygraph test. (Seattle Times, 8 August 1937.) 8 | RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM RENTON HISTORY MUSEUM 235 Mill Ave. S Renton, WA 98057 Roadhouses like the one at Cottonwood Grove, off Maple Valley Highway, could be places for social drinkers, but sometimes attracted a clientele with darker motives. (#1980.024.1675, Collection of the Renton History Museum.)