HISTORY: Part 2 – Frenchy Gratton makes moves on Milwaukie!

For those who came in late: In the last issue of THE BEE, the location of the mysterious “Gratton’s Grove” was revealed, and a few facts about its namesake – Isaac “Frenchy” Gratton – were offered. These included both the successful operation of his legitimate business, the Standard Box Factory, and his other marginally legal enterprises – running gambling saloons in downtown Portland.

Leaving his native Quebec at age seventeen he worked his way across the United States, harvesting cotton in the South – it was said he left there, because the food was unpalatable – and working in mining camps in Colorado, before arriving in Portland in the late 1870s. His first business was operating a stable in northwest Portland, where horses and carriages could be rented, or animals boarded by their owners.

Arriving in America as a non-English speaker, he absorbed the language while laboring in rough circumstances. By listening and observing closely he acquired his new language, but also learned to “read” through non-verbal means what someone was really communicating – a skill employed by successful card players. With the income from the stable, and profitable evenings around the card tables, Frenchy and a partner opened their first saloon/card room in 1880: The Brunswick Billiard Parlors on S.W. 3rd near Alder. Offering more than a beer and a friendly game on the green baize, the Brunswick was a gambling club that was raided often, beginning just a few months after it opened. Responding calmly when arrested, Frenchy promptly made bail, and when charged before a judge always pled guilty, paid a reduced fine, and returned to work. He understood that his arrests were a superficial gesture in the face of massive corruption – just part of doing business.

Picking up, and concluding, the story

Well into the 20th Century Portland was a “wide open” town, where drunkenness, prostitution, and gambling were rampant – and, for the most part, unchallenged. The reasons for these conditions were complex and involved a dense network of the city’s social and business Establishment who owned downtown properties where the activities occurred, but concealed their ill-gotten incomes behind false “owners.” The most thorough explanation of this part of Portland’s history can be found in E. Kimbark MacColl’s 1988 book, “Merchants, Money & Power, The Portland Establishment, 1843-1913”. Frenchy Gratton was a very small fish compared to the Big Fish (or sharks, if you will) who were always safe. His operations provided them with steady rent, and in his sphere he was a successful businessman. He was not a joiner; he would never be a member of a social club or the Chamber of Commerce and – except for the Elks – of any fraternal organization. His clubs (there were others in addition to the Burlington) were apparently fairly run, he did not cheat his patrons or water their drinks, and he was never accused of running a brothel, or doing any “temporary matchmaking”.

In 1888 he married a widow, Mary (Fuhr) Weber, whose father was his business partner. Mary’s deceased husband Emil Weber ran another saloon, and was gunned down in the street by a disgruntled customer. With property from Weber estate, Mary became a successful real estate dealer and developer. She lived with Frenchy in their house on Milwaukie Avenue for some time, but he filed for divorce in 1908 on the grounds that she had abandoned him. They must have remained friends, though, because after her death in 1938 she was buried next to him in River View Cemetery.

Frenchy invested his money in land, including a farm of several hundred acres outside of Washougal, and another in far eastern Multnomah County. In the late 1890s he bought the box factory, and soon after moved to his large property and home on Milwaukie Avenue just south of Holgate, the area soon referred to as “Gratton’s Grove”. He kept his downtown stable and one of his card rooms, but they were managed by others, as was his factory.

Following an extended visit to Quebec in 1903 – his first since leaving decades earlier – Frenchy lived quietly, and now in his fifties he could relax and become a gentleman farmer. But according to an interview in the Oregonian, he was “tired of doing nothing”. He stated that “no gambling houses were open in Portland” because Mayor Williams had closed all pool rooms in 1904. He missed sparring with the city’s constabulary and courts, and the interactions with his customers.

But, sensing the hot winds of moral reform, Frenchy began looking for opportunities beyond Portland and Multnomah County. He didn’t have to look far: Upriver, and just across the county line, was his next target – the snug little town of Milwaukie.

Frenchy did his due diligence, meeting with the Mayor and City Council members in both Milwaukie and in Oregon City – the county seat – before purchasing twelve acres on the Willamette River in downtown Milwaukie in March of 1905. Residents were hopeful that a new business would offer increased employment – perhaps an extension of his box factory. Others, like members of the local Lutheran Church and the Law & Order Club, who were familiar with Frenchy’s gambling reputation, were wary.

Within weeks a substantial new building on the riverbank was under construction, and by June the “Milwaukie Country Club” was open. Privacy for the members-only club was assured by a tall fence that surrounded the structure. Gratton also arranged for “express” service on the streetcar line from downtown Portland, providing quick transportation to Milwaukie. When gamblers were ready to return, heavy losers were kindly provided with a free ticket back to the city, as well as one to be used for a future visit.

While there were state and county laws prohibiting gambling, towns had their own ordinances that were enforced by local police and judges. Before the new “Country Club” opened, the Milwaukie City Council thoughtfully passed an ordinance allowing it to license pool selling, and off-site paramutual betting on horse races; but other types of gambling were forbidden.

Continuing the business model developed in Portland, activities at Gratton’s Milwaukie club were discreet; there was no violence, loud music, or drunken behavior. As members stepped into the club from the nearby streetcar line, rumors began to seep through the fence that gambling was going on – including roulette, faro, craps, and poker. The managers were queried by Milwaukie police, and the club subsequently paid for an operating license that cost $1,000. With his liquor license, Frenchy’s establishment was now paying more fees than the rest of city’s businesses combined. Elected officials did not object, because they were always short of tax money, and the council wanted to build a new City Hall.

Despite the city license, there were state laws against pool selling. Oregon had many racetracks with both fall and spring seasons; the animals traveled from track to track throughout the Pacific Northwest. Betting in person at the race was legal; off-track betting was not, because the activity was “invisible” and could not be monitored. But why should enthusiasts not be allowed to bet on a race in Tacoma, Spokane, Montana, or even Canada? Frenchy came up with an ingenious plan that used both the latest technology – the telephone! – and a superb public transportation system, the inter-urban streetcar line, to extend his reach back into Portland, where pool selling remained illegal.

For the enormous sum of $65/month he had a private telephone line installed between the Milwaukie club and a small back room in The Owl saloon in downtown Portland. At the Owl, odds on distant races were communicated from the Western Union telegraph company just around the corner. As the operator at The Owl picked up the information, he entered the details into a “pool book” that was displayed in cigar stores and communicated to the Milwaukie Country Club on the private telephone line. Information about the horses, their jockeys, and betting odds were written on an enormous blackboard at The Club, where bets were placed by gamblers in person.

In downtown Portland, as men sidled into the cigar stores to pick their favorites, the information relayed to Milwaukie. At the Club an employee listened on the phone from Portland, as odds changed and were updated on the board. When the race began, the employee at the Club phone – speaking as fast as an auctioneer – described the races as they were transmitted by telegraph to The Owl, and on to Milwaukie. In the evening Frenchy and his partner would travel to downtown Portland to pay the winners. Technically only information was being transmitted from Portland to Milwaukie, across county lines, and money was won or lost only in Milwaukie. But it didn’t take long for word of the ingenious arrangement to reach the ears of Portland’s “Reform Mayor”, Harry Lane, who was outraged.

In November, citing an ordinance in Portland’s City Charter that stated that the Mayor could suppress gambling activities up to four miles beyond its city limits, Lane ordered a police sergeant and five detectives to travel to Milwaukie and shut down the Country Club. As usual, Frenchy paid bail, and waited for his court date in Portland – but Milwaukie Mayor Shindler was furious at Portland’s overreach, commenting that “the club was not a threat to morals, because the young men of Milwaukie were not patrons.” Later in the month both the city’s attorney and the county District Attorney stated that Portland had no legal authority to cross a county line and interfere with another municipality’s activities. A judge agreed and the matter was tabled.

In April of 1906 Gratton and his business partner stood trial in Multnomah County for maintaining a nuisance by running a branch of the Milwaukie Country Club in Portland at The Owl. The two-day trial ended following three ballots in 40 minutes by the jury, which declared Gratton “not guilty”. A year later public agitation against the club within Clackamas County was increasing, leading to the Clackamas County Sheriff witnessing open gambling at the club. This caused a previously-silent investor, a horse breeder and whiskey distiller from Kentucky named Col. Applegate, to call a halt to the pool selling until the situation quieted down.

The Milwaukie Club was then reorganized for the purpose of “selling and buying wines, liquors, cigars and real estate”. Although newspaper accounts are sparse, it appears that the Club closed in 1910. It disappeared from the headlines until 1913, when Frenchy announced he wanted to reopen it as the “Milwaukie Tavern”, with a restaurant, a beer garden, and live music. City residents, now well-organized, pushed back – and the city did not approve an operating or liquor license.

In 1910 Oswald West was elected Governor of Oregon. Like Portland Mayor Harry Lane, he was a reformer and populist. Six years earlier, in 1904, voters had approved the “local option” which allowed individual counties to pass prohibition laws. But it was common for liquor in “plain brown wrappers” to be transported into “dry” counties by railroad and truck. West was not for statewide prohibition, which did pass in 1914, but he was disgusted by the flagrant disregard of law. He knew that vice and corruption continued to thrive in Portland, to the benefit of the city’s business and social elite, who he referred to in a speech in Portland – commenting that he “was against capital punishment, because the rich were never hung”.

In 1912 Frenchy opened his newly-built, two-story restaurant and hotel on the riverbank at the foot of Monroe Street. The Gratton Hotel had several dining areas, an experienced chef, and wine and liquor was legally available. But the rooms on the second floor were not filled with overnight guests, but gambling equipment! When he learned of these activities, illegal under state law, Governor West ordered the state militia to close the hotel. The liquor license was withdrawn and the Mayor and two City Council members resigned.

After a lifetime of “reading” his customers, and challenging and dodging laws in various municipalities, Frenchy knew that big social changes were underway. Oregon women finally were allowed to vote; dry counties would be followed by statewide prohibition, and just two years earlier in downtown Portland, his old poolroom/saloon was torn down to make way for the Yeon building.

As always, Frenchy Gratton had other business options. In addition to his hotel, renamed The Belle and leased to a new manager, he built a commercial automobile garage in downtown Milwaukie; and in 1917 he sold some of his original twelve acres on the riverfront to the Hawley Pulp Mill. The fate of the Milwaukie Country Club is unknown, but it possibly burned, or was demolished. His hotel was turned into apartments in 1942, later acquired by the City of Milwaukie for housing, and finally demolished in 2000.

After beginning his Portland business career with a stable, Frenchy became passionate about speedy new automobiles. When in 1911 at age 61 he remarried, he presented his 38-year old bride with a custom Stearns touring car. In spite of primitive road conditions, the couple enjoyed many long road trips, and it was on the return journey from Yellowstone Park in 1927 that Frenchy missed a turn somewhere outside Pendleton, and died when the car plunged off the highway. His widow Arvilla and her son Paul whom Frenchy had adopted, lived in the house on Milwaukie Avenue until she died in 1945.

So ends the account of the forgotten but tumultuous and complicated life of Isaac “Frenchy” Gratton, and the origin of “Gratton’s Grove”. At present, the western edge of the Grove, recently the site of La Carreta Mexican restaurant, is now being redeveloped into a food cart emporium. Information provided at the location, S.E. Holgate at McLoughlin Blvd., indicates that a new lounge and a number of food carts will occupy the space.

Perhaps one of the food carts will offer “poutine”, a popular dish in Quebec, Frenchy’s birthplace. In the interest of disclosure, this writer did sample poutine in a McDonald’s restaurant in Montreal – but it would take many hours of vigorous ice hockey to justify consuming that rich combination of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy!