Jackson Jambalaya

Collection of all posts on the Gold Coast.

Sheriff L.G. Holyfield.  Imagine that name spoken with the voice of John Facenda.  Such was the effect of that name on the Gold Coast.  Other Sheriffs made excuses as the whiskey flowed during prohibition in Mississippi.  Sheriff Holyfield just stopped them.  His tenure as Sheriff was a reign of terror for the Gold Coast. 


Prohibition was in full swing yet fell it fell afoul of the laws of supply in demand.  Too many people in Jackson wanted to have a drink and too many would-be capitalists pigs saw an opportunity to sell them booze at black market prices.  Bootleggers began operating in an area that came to be known as the Gold Coast in what was known as East Jackson several decades ago but is actually the east bank of the Pearl River in Rankin County.  Drinking, gambling, and general carousing flourished on the Gold Coast - until the law would come shut it all down.  The forty or so years of the Gold Coast's existence saw a grown-up's game of cat & mouse take place between the bootleggers and the police.  Friendly politicians got fat and happy off of the bootleggers until things got out of hand.  Public outcry would then bring in a new crop of law and order politicians who busted the bootleggers - until the pendulum swung the other way at the ballot box.

The Gold Coast cooled down some during the War Years.  Young men, always the most easily tempted for the ways of sin, were away at war.  Sheriff Holyfield had cracked down on the licentiousness that defined the Gold Coast.  However, the Gold Coast might have cooled off but it still simmered in a pressure cooker of booze and gambling that was always ready to explode.

This week's batch of newspaper articles runs from 1941-1945.  They begin with one of the more humorous stories of the Gold Coast.  Some bootleggers were so mad at Sheriff Holyfield that they placed acid on the seats in his cruiser when he raided the Gold Coast  one night.  A man who was arrested was placed in the vehicle and suffered some acid burns.  The state seized a ten-ton truck lad of booze in Vicksburg. Ouch.  Sheriff Holyfield threatened to release the names of those arrested in his raids but these names would be those of customers, not bootleggers.  One man was sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison after he murdered someone on the Gold Coast.  Oddly enough, the IRS reported that "thousands" of federal stamps were sold for slot  machines even though they were illegal in Missississippi.  A man from Ellisville was arrested for stabbing a deaf man to death.    A night watchman was shot at the Owl's Nest.  A man was also shot to death at the Lone Star Inn as well.  Rough was not the word for this place.


Note: Read the story on p. 7 about the United States ambassador to Bulgaria.