American politician (1899?1969)
Virgil Edward "Red" Berry
(February 27, 1899 ? November 24, 1969) was a
Texas
politician who represented
San Antonio
in both the
Texas House of Representatives
and the
Texas Senate
in the 1960s. He was also widely known for his involvement in
gambling
in the San Antonio area throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
Biography
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]
Berry was born 27 February 1899 near
Fort Smith
,
Arkansas
, one of 13 children. As a young man, he worked as an office clerk in Fort Smith, and, later, for the
Union Pacific Railroad
as a machinist apprentice. In
World War I
, he served in the 60th Railway Transportation Corps in the
U.S. Army
in
France
. He was later stationed at
Fort Sam Houston
in San Antonio as an
MP
. In this capacity he patrolled downtown San Antonio streets for wayward soldiers.
After his departure from the Army, Berry returned to San Antonio in 1929. With his knowledge of San Antonio's seamier side, he entered the gambling business. He opened the elegant Turf Club in 1934 on Soledad Street. He was convicted for shooting Otto "Skeeter" Klaus?a bootlegger and murderer?with a
sawed-off shotgun
. The verdict was appealed, but no retrial ever took place, sparing Berry jail time. The Turf Club was raided by the
Texas Rangers
in October 1944, but the club remained open.
Berry was considered the prime suspect in the 1945 shotgun-blast murder of another San Antonio gambling kingpin, Hersel Gray, but was never indicted. He was indicted two other times for murder, but never convicted.
[1]
By the time the Turf Club finally closed in 1957,
[2]
Berry had moved his gambling operations twice.
The first move was to the nearby town of
La Vernia, Texas
. While his gambling interests were based there, Berry won?in a game of
Pitch
?title to an 84-acre (34 ha) tract of land southeast of Fort Sam Houston. In 1951, he constructed a 13,000-square-foot (1,200 m
2
) house in the style of a French chateau that included a full basement, where he subsequently moved his casino. A police raid in 1955 confiscated his gambling equipment and closed down the operation.
In 1960, with the dual goals of gaining respectability for himself and pushing for the legalization of
parimutuel wagering
on horse-racing in Texas, Berry won the
Democratic Party
primary for
District 68
, Place 4, in the Texas House of Representatives.
[1]
In the general election, the 61-year-old Berry faced off against 29-year-old
Republican
Henry Catto
, son of a prominent insurance man in San Antonio. During the campaign, which included a televised debate, Berry referred to Catto as "kiddo" and "fat cat Catto". In the heavily Democratic Texas of the era, Berry won the election with 54 percent of the vote.
[1]
After serving his freshman term in the Texas House in the
57th Legislature
, Berry was re-elected to the
58th
and the
59th Legislatures
.
[3]
When
Walter Richter
did not seek re-election to his Texas Senate seat, Berry successfully ran for the
District 19
seat in 1966. Berry was re-elected in 1968. While still a sitting senator, Berry succumbed to cancer on 24 November 1969 in San Antonio.
[4]
Berry was married to the former Lydia Josephine Galloway. They had a son, Duke Edward Berry, in 1938.
[5]
References
[
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]
- Bowser, David (2003).
West of the Creek: Murder, Mayhem and Vice in Old San Antonio
. San Antonio: Maverick Pub. Co. pp. 104?108.
ISBN
1-893271-29-3
.
OCLC
52429474
.
External links
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