The Phenix City Story

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I actually read a book and did a little research on Phenix City a few years back, but our field trip tied everything together. The Phenix City Story is a one-of-a-kind window into a sordid and fascinating period in American crime history. The namesake suggests a glorious bird arisen from the ashes of defeat, but Phenix City, Alabama, at this point in its long history, was anything but glorious. A small town just across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia, Phenix City had long been controlled by mob and criminal interests in gambling, prostitution, drugs and racketeering. The crime town was a boon to the criminal underworld. Curious tourists with trouble in mind kept gambling coffers full and a steady flow of soldiers from nearby…show more content…
Aside from such blatant crime running rampant, the most troubling aspect of the criminal enterprises, often conducted in the glaring light of day, was the permissive blind eye from the otherwise law-abiding citizens of the town. Mostly the average citizen regarded much of the notoriety as being perfectly normal. One resident who had grown up in Phenix City remembered that as a boy, he would spend leisure time “playing the slot machines with no sense of wrongdoing. They would be found not only in the honky-tonks but also in the drug and grocery stores and clothing shops, even within two blocks of the high school. They came equipped with wooden stools for those to short to reach the handle.” Either out of laziness, lethargy or fear, Phenix City taxpayers just weren’t interested in cleaning up their own town, even though they knew their failure to address the problem might become hell to pay later on. The impetus for significant action took place on June 18, 1954, when local lawyer and Alabama State Attorney General nominate Albert L. Patterson was gunned down outside his law office by the crime syndicate opposed to his plans to take charge and clean up the town. With a hometown hero dead and the heated flush of embarrassment coming from the rest of the state, Phenix City residents were finally compelled to turn the tide against the syndicate’s invaluable status quo. Now Phenix City is one of the nicer places to raise a

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