Phenix City and Fort Benning

/

Illegal Gambling and the Military

A recent artifact donated to the museum harks back to an era of lawlessness and murder in Phenix City, Alabama.

An old matchbook with a racy image and an inappropriate slogan may be written off as a vulgar novelty. But while taking a closer look, the address “1900 - 14th Street. Phenix City, Alabama” reveals this to not be a simple matchbook, but an artifact belonging to a city which no longer exists. While you can still find Phenix City on any map, it’s a considerably different place from where this artifact originated.

 
 

In the 1950s, Phenix City was a hotbed of illegal gambling, prostitution, and organized crime. Soldiers training at neighboring Fort Benning, Georgia happily made the 15-minute car ride across the Chattahoochee River to take advantage of the city’s nightlife. The neon-soaked 14th street (bottom left photo) housed the majority of the city’s gambling dens, brothels, and bars.

Also donated to the museum was a card given out to soldiers (bottom middle photo) warning of the perils of illegal gambling. Despite these warnings, the majority of 14th street’s patrons were soldiers from Ft. Benning (bottom right photo).

 
 

All of this ended on the evening of June 18, 1954. Albert Patterson (bottom left photo), a local attorney, recently won the Democratic nomination for Attorney General. Patterson ran on a platform of cleaning up vice and corruption in Phenix City. At 9:00pm on June 18, Patterson left his law office and walked to his car parked in a neighboring alley. While getting into his vehicle, Patterson was shot three times by an unknown assailant. The bottom photograph shows a crowd covering the area where Patterson was shot. Chief Deputy Sherrif Albert Fuller is photographed examining the crime scene (bottom right photo, man pointing at the blood).

 
 

Patterson’s murder caused unrest in the city, to the point where Alabama Governor Gordon Persons ordered in the National Guard under the command of Major General Walter J Hanna. Originally brought in to aid the local police, Hanna soon realized that Phenix City’s police department was rife with corruption. Governor Persons declared martial law on July 22, 1954, which allowed the Alabama National Guard to assume law enforcement duties (first three photos, from left to right). The National Guard completely decimated the vice syndicate in Phenix City, destroying gambling devices (two bottom photographs to the right) and purging most of its public officials from office. The city’s first “free” election in decades took place in November 1954, and with a new government elected, martial law was ended in January 1955.

Three men were indicted for Patterson’s murder: Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller (photographed above), Circuit Solicitor Arch Ferrell, and Attorney General Si Garrett. Of the three, only Fuller was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled after serving 10 years and died in 1969.

 
 

A fictionalized account of Phenix City’s corruption and Patterson’s assassination can be seen in the 1955 film noir The Phenix City Story.

 
 
 

Further reading:

Barnes, Margaret Ann. “The Tragedy and the Triumph of Phenix City, Alabama.” Macon: Mercer University Press. 2012 reprint.

Ingram, Tammy. “The South’s Sin City: White Crime and the Limits of Law and Order in Phenix City, Alabama.” In Crime and Punishment in the Jim Crow South, edited by Amy Louise Wood and Natalie J. Ring, 79-104. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. 2019.






HAWK Missile Launcher

/
HAWK Missile Launcher


When the United States sought an option for a medium range, semi-active surface-to-air missile during the early 1950s, what resulted was the HAWK missile system, targeted toward low-flying aircraft.


The Regional Military Museum in Houma is proud to display an exhibit showcasing the HAWK missile system, including a tractor used to load the launch trailer that would ultimately fire the missiles in combat.



Read More

Honoring the Black Sheep

/
Honoring the Black Sheep

On Jan. 6, 2005, as the Iraq War raged on, a roadside bomb destroyed a Bradley fighting vehicle on a routine patrol near Baghdad, immediately sending the vehicle into flames.

Occupying the vehicle were six members of the Louisiana Army National Guard’s Second Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Infantry Brigade. The deaths of these six members blindsided residents of the Bayou Region…

Read More

Trench Art

/
Trench Art

From the earliest days of wars in American history, soldiers sought out an escape from the pressure, exhaustion, and cruelty of the battles around them.

Sometimes, that escape came in the form of creative, artistic outlets that served a twofold purpose: to make the most of one’s free time, and to produce souvenirs to bring back home to the United States as a reminder of one’s service to the nation.

Read More