WHITNEY ROYSTER Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Monday, December 13, 2004 12:00 am
JACKSON - Steve Bartek? Why, he had some of the fastest hands in Wyoming back in the 1950s.
At least, that's what many who saw him work at the Wort Hotel remember.
His daughter, Elizabeth, recalls him flipping up bottles into his hands so fast it looked like his hands never moved, and the bottles simply appeared.
"A lot of those guys were like showmen," she said. "Bartenders would throw bottles back and forth."
Steve Bartek managed the Wort during its heyday of gambling.
"The era with the gambling and the bar and the live entertainment, I think that was his favorite era," Elizabeth said.
Bartek's wife of more than 50 years, Connie, agreed.
"The atmosphere was wonderful," she said. "I just thought it was so exciting."
This was, of course, back in the "good ol' days" when gambling - though illegal - was largely overlooked in Teton County.
Connie Bartek said the clients of the card games were largely affluent summer visitors.
"Steve hired good people, and it never got too rowdy," she said. Her husband, who didn't smoke or drink, could always handle the crowds.
But in the rest of the state, gambling was harder to come by. After an uprising throughout the state in the late 1800s, gambling was declared illegal with the McGill Act of 1901.
According to Dr. William "Bud" Moore, chairman of the history department of the University of Wyoming, the McGill Act did curtail gambling, but eliminating it altogether was problematic.
"It doesn't mean it didn't reduce it," Moore said. "It's often the case that these failed reform efforts don't prohibit something."
Moore compared it to Prohibition, which reduced the per-capita consumption of liquor but didn't keep people from drinking - or drinking too much.
"It didn't prohibit, but it did curtail it," he said. "The gambling act did curtail gambling, but it didn't curtail gambling in every place at all times."
One of those places was Teton County.
"In resort areas, these kinds of pieces of legislation tended to be not as rigorously enforced as they would be in other areas," Moore said. "In Teton County, there would be gambling, but probably even there, gambling would be something that would become more of an upper-class or middle-class operation."
Social fixture
In interviews by the Jackson Hole Historical Society with old-timers around during the gambling heyday, it appears the activity was a social fixture.
Wilma Taylor, who worked at the Wort Hotel, was surrounded by gambling.
She said gambling had been part of the town for years, and when Jess and John Wort built the hotel in 1941, they made the games part of it.
"Most places had 21, craps, roulette, poker," she said. "Everybody came in to gamble - all the ranchers and dude ranchers brought all their guests in, and the hunting guides would bring their hunters in. I thought it was a great thing for the community."
Taylor added, "When gambling was open we didn't have murders, rapes or any of that. Gambling wasn't big here compared to Las Vegas. It was lots of fun. We often had people trying to shut it down. Usually some do-gooder would get on his high horse and we'd have to move downstairs."
There were tales of corruption in gambling, too.
Leonard "Boots" Allen worked at the tables in the Wort from time to time.
"The card dealin' was somethin' else," he said in an interview with the Historical Society. "The real ones, (the real gamblers) knew how to deal what they called 'seconds.' They had their cards marked, and they knew those cards. Me, I wasn't interested. I just wanted to deal those cards out and get me another fishin' party."
But most mention the friendly nature of the card games - the atmosphere of fun rather than of hard gambling.
As Bartek said, you have to remember the era before widespread television, when the bars and clubs were social hubs. Gambling was a different breed than it is today, with images of people losing their savings and drinking heavily.
Going underground
On June 7, 1951, the Jackson's Hole Courier noted that gambling went into a sort of hiding.
The article, written by newspaper owner and county attorney Wilford Neilson, said, "the county attorney stated that he had issued no orders nor signed any complaints to such effect. He said that it was only about three years until he will be up for reelection again and that he didn't want to offend anybody."
For the Barteks, the incident came into their home.
Connie Bartek remembered the night Steve called at about midnight, telling her to unlock a pantry area in the couple's basement, which led to the outside.
She did, and a big truck pulled up with slot machines. The machines were stored in their basement for most of the winter.
The incident, however, appeared to be the beginning of the unraveling of Teton County's gambling circles. Papers charging certain men with gambling, and slot machines taken into custody, were also mentioned in the article.
"The county attorney stated that other complaints would be filed from time to time as the spirit of the movement required," Neilson's article said.
The following week, the same newspaper printed a story saying, "The gambling closedown appears effective thruout (sic) the county and authorities say that it will remain so for some time to come. They say that all gambling devices within reach of search warrants will be taken into custody during the course of the summer."
The same day that story appeared, June 13, 1951, ex-Gov. Leslie Miller - a longtime opponent of gambling - wrote Neilson saying he approved of the crackdown.
"My congratulations, for in that spot I know it took some real courage to embark upon the program you have evidently laid out for yourself," he wrote. "I hope, of course, you will hold firm in the face of the pressures which undoubtedly be engendered to for you to withdraw from your position. Why ordinarily hard-headed business men, of whom you have quite a number in Teton County, have temporized with gambling and its evil effects upon local people for so long a time has always been a mystery to me."
End of an era
The final crackdown came in 1956, as then-Gov. Milward Simpson "declared that so long as gambling was illegal, there would be none in his state - and he meant it," Huyler wrote in his book. "At first, the games moved to the basement of the Wort, and you had to know Steve Bartek to get in."
Connie Bartek remembered going into the basement of the Wort.
"The bar was so dead, everyone was underground," Bartek said. "We'd go down there, and they'd say, 'What's the password to get in?'"
Bartek said she didn't know the password, but said, "Joe sent me," and was allowed in. Of course, she knew the boss.
The Sept. 13, 1956, issue of the Jackson Hole Guide said that Simpson sought the impeachment of Teton County Sheriff Olin Emery because of the continued gambling in the county. The move followed the printing of photographs taken with a hidden camera by a reporter from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.
After the photos appeared, Simpson directed the county attorney to enforce the law, said Simpson's son, former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson.
"The county attorney did not respond," Alan Simpson said, "so my father sent the attorney general of Wyoming to close it down."
As a result, the Teton County sheriff resigned, and four liquor licenses were suspended for 45 days.
The curtain closed on Teton County's gambling era in that year - 1956. Bartek said her husband was sad when the gambling ended.
"He loved it, and he loved the people," she said. "After it shut down, it was so quiet and sad."
Two places still have types of gambling in Teton County. The Elks Club hosts a weekly bingo night, and Camp Creek Inn south of town holds poker tournaments with portions going to charity.
Star-Tribune correspondent Tamara Linse contributed to this report.
Staff writer Whitney Royster can be reached at (307) 734-0260 or at royster@trib.com.