The Oriole Terrace was built in 1932 a mile or two south of Joplin's 32nd Street (which is the Jasper-Newton county line) on South Main Street Road. The club opened either late that year or sometime in the first two-thirds of 1933. The first mention of the place that I could find in newspapers was a September 1933 reference to a mother and daughter dance team from Kansas City who had recently performed at the Oriole Terrace.
Presumably their act was a little tamer than that of a "peroxide blonde" stripper who performed for a full house at the Oriole Terrace during "free beer night" one evening in January 1934. Free beer night was a regular Wednesday evening attraction of the Oriole Terrace. It costs 25 cents to get in, but the admission price entitled you to all the beer you could drink from 9 p.m. to midnight. The free beer nights were so successful that the proprietors soon raised the admission price to 50 cents for stags, while couples could still get in for 25 cents a person. Floor shows weren't limited just to free beer nights, and not all of the acts were as risqué as the blonde stripper's performance. They ranged from vaudeville acts to serious musicians, but enough of them pushed the boundaries of decency for the Oriole Terrace to quickly gain a reputation as a disorderly and immoral place. So much so, as I mentioned in last week's post, that a Newton County deputy was assigned to the club on a regular basis to keep order.
The brawl that took place at the Oriole Terrace in September 1934, when mobster Herb Farmer shot and seriously wounded a Newton County deputy, did little to tame the raucous atmosphere at the nightspot. Later in September, the Oriole Terrace featured a floor show that was billed as "the fastest mile-a-minute show in the Midwest."
The shooting incident did, however, increase calls for law enforcement to do something about the place. In early October, only two or three weeks after the shooting, the State of Missouri, on complaint from citizens living in the vicinity of the Oriole Terrace, filed suit in Newton County against the proprietors of the club, Robert Winters and Herbert Sanders, and against the owners of the seven-acre tract of land where the club was located, Edgar and Ruth Brown.
Seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance, the suit claimed the club was a "lewd, obscene, dissolute and immoral place," that it was "frequented by outlaws," and that it had "no adequate police protection." The suit also alleged that hard liquor was served without a license at the club and that it housed a gambling operation. One of the affidavits filed with the complaint was sworn out by a 17-year-old girl who said that she had danced scantily clad at the nightclub and that she had witnessed "immoral acts" there.
The defendants were granted a change of venue to Jasper County, and, while the lawsuit was awaiting action, the Oriole Terrace continued to operate as usual. As if in defiance of the suit, the club, on Saturday night, October 13, held what was advertised as a "big dance" and a "new floor show" with performances at 11 p.m., 1 a.m., and 3 a.m. On Tuesday night, October 30, the Oriole Terrace held a big Halloween party, followed the next night by its standard "free beer night." In November, the club started staying open until three o'clock in the morning or later, even on weekdays, not just weekends, and in early December, a new floor show was introduced featuring Emaleen, "the girl with the million-dollar smile," and hula dancer Bertha Zuapa. The Oriole Terrace celebrated both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with big bashes.
In early January 1935, Winters, Sanders, and a young waitress at the Oriole Terrace were charged with selling liquor without a license, and they paid fines without contesting the charges. The very next night, they were arrested again for the same offense. The young woman again pled guilty and was fined $1 and costs, but the two operators of the club pled not guilty. They were tried in a justice court at Redings Mill, found guilty, and fined $100 each.
A couple of days later, a hearing on the lawsuit seeking to close the Oriole Terrace that had been transferred to Jasper County was postponed because one of the defendants' lawyers, who was a member of the state legislature, was not available.
The Newton County prosecutor responded by immediately dropping the first suit and filing a new complaint in his county, once again seeking an injunction to close the Oriole Terrace as a public nuisance. He cited the latest liquor offenses as well as prior complaints against the club. The judge granted a temporary injunction closing the club and scheduled a hearing for later on whether to make the injunction permanent.
Not easily deterred, Herb Sanders, a day or two after the Oriole Terrace was shut down, applied for a license in Joplin to open a nightclub and liquor dispensary in the 600 block of North Schifferdecker. The city council voted unanimously to deny the application.
In the wee hours of March 19, 1935, the Oriole Terrace, which had been abandoned since its closure in January, burned down from unknown causes. It seems reasonable to conjecture, however, that, given the place's unsavory reputation, the fire might have been a case of arson.
Shortly after being denied a license to open a nightclub in Joplin, Herb Sanders, along with his partner, Robert Winters, took over management of the Silver Slipper, a nightclub on West Seventh outside the city limits of Joplin. Previously known as the Tavern, the Silver Slipper burned mysteriously in the wee hours of May 27, slightly over two months after the Oriole Terrace had suffered a similar fate.
Sanders and Winters disappeared from the Joplin scene after this. Perhaps they decided to seek friendlier climes to conduct their line of business.
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