.San Jlose Mercury News
SO CENTS I VALLEY I SV _ _
JANUARY 22, 1981
I THURSDAY
Group gambles on putting up
tribute to S.F. slot machine
By Patricia Loomis
red tape was the color of their shirts. They would put
Staff Writer
up the marker without the city's blessing.
The mystery of California Historic Landmark No.
In an ornate old building on the downtown comer,
937 - which marks the site in San Francisco where the inventor Charles Fey made the first three-reel slot ma-
granddaddy of slot machines was manufactured has chines from 1896 until the factory was destroyed in the
been solved.
1906 earthquake and fire.
The monument was erected
A plaque-raising date
one evening last summer with-
was set and at 6:30 on a
out any of the passing cock-
June evening, an official
tail-and dinner crowd aware
highway truck with warn-
of what was going on. Offi-
ing lights eased up to the
cials of the city and county of
curb. A heavy object shaped
San Francisco were conspicu-
like a boulder was unloaded
ously absent and that's part of
from a trailer, men wear-
the story.
ing red vests and hard hats
The monument, a hunk of
moved stealthily but surely,
granite to which is affixed a
digging, hammering, pour-
plaque, is in a little triangular
ing concrete.
area at the intersection of Bat-
Twice police cars cruised
tery, Market and Bush streets,
by, the officers waving.
three of San Francisco's earli-
The foreman of the Clam-
est thoroughfares.
per crew, one Jim "Boom
Several members of the
Boom" Arbuckle was get-
Fey family belong to the An-
ting nervous as nearly a
cient and Honorable Order of
dozen "citizens" in suits
E Clampus Vitus, members
appeared to hover over the
of which have been known
outskirts of the operation.
to interest themselves in the
But on closer scrutiny all
preservation of history as well
turned out to be Clampers
as the welfare of widows and
on hand to back up and
orphans.
photograph the procedure.
It seemed natural that the
Finally, about 8p.m., it
"Clampers" would decide to
was done. Tools were put
honor the birthplace of such
away, the truck moved off,
a noble invention and so the
and the men in hard hats
necessary applications and pa-
disappeared to don their red
pers were made out, a plaque
shirts and rendezvous in a
was made and affixed to a hunk of granite.
hotel suite to toast the new landmark.
The state OK'd the marker, but nary a word was heard
It is said that twice on the next Saturday, as a San
regarding the requested permit from San Francisco of- Francisco Clamper worked on hands and knees remov-
ficials . Months passed. Finally the Clampers, rallied ing the wood form fr9m around the base of the monu-
from chapters throughout the Bay Area, agreed the only ment, a passerby was heard to question the advisability
thing thing they had in common with governmental of the city's paying overtime for such a minor job.