Phenix City and Fort Benning
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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.
