The Story of Casa Madrid - Cape Cod's Speakeasy

 

Prohibition was a law that made the production and sale of alcohol illegal in the United States. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution was on the books from January 1920 to December 1933. During this time, however, despite it being illegal there were still ways for people to enjoy their favorite liquors. One of the most well-known is that of the ‘speakeasy.’ These were hidden spots where one could get a drink. Cape Cod was no stranger to speakeasies with perhaps the most famous of these standing inconspicuously in South Yarmouth until only recently. It was known as Casa Madrid and this is its story.

Sunset at South Yarmouth's appropriately nicknamed Smuggler's Beach.

Situated for nearly a century on Run Pond Road this stucco building stood out like a sore thumb among the shingled classic Cape Cod homes. It was constructed in early 1933 for $125,000 ($3 million in 2024) and promoted as a dinner and dancing establishment associated with the Yarmouth Beach Club. The yellow stucco and red tiles were meant to catch the eye of passersby as was the intention of its creator, local realtor Alex Finn, and his partner Oscar Skinner. The Spanish style was considered entirely new for Cape Cod at the time. There were roads leading to the areas around Casa Madrid with the Nantucket Sound beaches merely a few hundred yards south, yet the establishment was surrounded by trees for the most part. Finn promised indoor and outdoor dancing with an enclosed courtyard with early estimates of the building being able to accommodate 3,000 people.

Casa Madrid was meant to be the destination for dinner and dancing on the Cape with entrance via ticket only. It was high class with proper dress required to get in as well. The grand opening of June 30, 1933, was attended by those sent invitations only, mainly members of the Beach Club and other high-ranking locals. Membership had more than its share of perks. There was access to the lockers in the bathhouse, hammocks, swings, handball and squash courts, canoes, rowboats, speedboats, and even a seaplane. The opening was a rousing success and it appeared that Cape Cod had its newest ‘place to be.’

However, a mere six weeks into its run Casa Madrid had its most famous night of all. On the night of Sunday, August 13, 1933, a group of thirty-five law enforcement officers under the direction of Lt. James Hughes and Assistant Attorney General George B. Lourie crashed the festivities at Casa Madrid after being tipped off about potential laws being broken there. Although some of the 300 guests present were eating and dancing when the officers arrived a great many more were found to be drinking at one of three bars inside the building while others were illegally gambling.

News of the raid on Casa Madrid in the Boston Globe, August 14, 1933

The raid was a week in planning and carried out with pinpoint precision. The troopers assembled in Norwell and made their way to the Cape accompanied by several Boston-based newspaper reporters who had been tipped off. Upon entering the establishment some of the patrons at Casa Madrid mistook the uniform-clad troopers as performers, this was obviously not the case. In a clean sweep, the raid seized a truckload of liquor, gambling equipment, and furnishings including a roulette wheel. There was also $7,360 ($176,827 in 2024) in cash on gambling tables, and the raid resulted in the arrest of thirty-four people including owners Finn and Skinner. In addition to those developments, rumors had it that many prominent citizens including Boston Mayor James Curley were in attendance that night, with him escaping through a window before being caught.

By pleading not guilty the club was allowed to remain open. On August 29th Assistant Attorney General Lourie personally led a second raid on Casa Madrid. The police used a sledgehammer to break down the door to a room that they said had previously housed gambling equipment yet found nothing this time. The club was operating within the law with more than a hundred guests eating and dancing. Before leaving the establishment Lourie and his troopers were offered dinner by Alex Finn which they declined. The club remained open through Labor Day when it closed for the season.

On September 6, 1933, the cases against those arrested at Casa Madrid were heard at the Barnstable Court House. Most of the charges were dropped or continued although both Finn and Skinner were fined $50 ($1,201 in 2024) for maintaining a gaming house and selling alcohol. Massachusetts Attorney General Joseph Warner pressured Yarmouth selectmen to shut down the controversial establishment. The charter of the Yarmouth Beach Club was revoked due to its connection with Casa Madrid, as a copy of its charter was found on the club wall during the initial police raid. Near the end of October 1933, the Casa Madrid case was closed with the gambling paraphernalia being destroyed but the money seized being returned to the claimants.

A postcard of Casa Madrid in the 1930s.(Historical Society of Old Yarmouth)

Before the start of the 1934 season, Prohibition was repealed which was seemingly good news for Casa Madrid. However, due to the problems it caused while alcohol was still illegal Yarmouth selectmen initially refused to give a liquor license to the club. They relented in May 1934 when Alex Finn sold his property to Alphonse Rossini. Finn liquidated all of his other holdings on Cape Cod shortly thereafter. Residents pushed to have the liquor license revoked and after a fire destroyed two cottages and damaged two others on the Casa Madrid property in April 1935 it appeared as though the club was doomed to fail.

The property as it appeared in 1998

Casa Madrid was again sold, to Peter Panesis, for the 1935 season. It opened July 3rd to a raucous crowd of over 500 with NBC recording artist Betty Bryant on hand to sing. Despite the first-night success, the 1935 season was a relative loss for Panesis and the property was sold once again. New ownership saw modest success in opening the club up for banquets and dances throughout the remainder of the 1930s. It remained a steady albeit unspectacular presence in South Yarmouth until its initial closing in 1962. Three years later it was reopened by Frank Thompson, of the legendary Thompson’s Clam Bar, as a respectable restaurant with no live entertainment and a 9pm closing time. 1965 went as well as possible, however, Casa Madrid only lasted half of the 1966 summer and in 1967 was opened only one day. By 1969 stringent conditions put on the restaurant by the Board of Appeals on their liquor license renewal, along with general changes to the neighborhood surrounding it, led to Casa Madrid throwing in the towel in 1969.

In the mid-1970s new owners tried and failed to convert Casa Madrid into a musical museum. It saw new life as a teen crisis center beginning in 1989. Despite being a relatively unsuspecting establishment for nearly all of its thirty-plus years in operation the legend of Casa Madrid will always be tied to the infamous raid on it during its days as a Prohibition speakeasy.

The Casa Madrid building itself stood on Run Pond Road until April 2024. It was finally torn down with the fate of the spot where it stood currently unknown.

The former site of Casa Madrid in April 2024.

In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Cape Cod's First Radio Station

     In 1903 the first transatlantic wireless communication took place in Wellfleet thanks to the invention of Guglielmo Marconi. It was the beginning of radio. 2020 will mark the 100^th anniversary of the first commercial radio broadcast. However it did not take place on Cape Cod but from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There have been many legendary radio stations on Cape Cod. 106 WCOD is still going strong since debuting in 1967, others like 99.9 WQRC and 107.5 WFCC have been supplying music to various audiences for decades. In 2019 there are an estimated 15,330 radio stations in the United States. Did you know that Cape Cod’s first radio station came in with a bang, make a quick splash, and left with barely a whimper?

     On November 2, 1920 Pittsburgh radio station KDKA aired the first commercial broadcast. The station had chosen election day in America so listeners could hear the results of the race between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox which Harding won. The broadcast was a huge success. Within four years there were 600 commercial radio stations in the country including WNAC in Boston, the future WRKO, and WEEI. These stations, and infrequently WEAF out of New York, could be tuned in to on Cape Cod.

     News programming and musical shows were the norm with special guest performers. To offset the costs of paying the performers plus improving the radio station equipment stations turned to advertisers. The very first radio advertisement, a fifteen-minute real estate ad about apartments in Jackson Heights, aired on WEAF New York on August 22, 1922. Radio became big business with advertising and networks developing and sharing programming among affiliates.

     The rising popularity and profitability of radio led to Cape Codders longing for their own local station. Boston and New York stations were accessible to varying degrees however lacked the local feel and coverage. In July 1926 their wish came true. A station was created in Osterville through the efforts of James Henderson, the president of the firm of Henderson & Ross. It was a 200 watt station located at the Seapuit Golf Course, one of the first built in America, along South County Road. The station, which would operate on the 250 meter band, was to be known by the call letters WJBX, however it debuted with the letters WSGC possibly as a nod to Seapuit Golf Course.

     The job of running the new radio station fell to William Harrison who had been working as a broadcaster for WEEI in Boston. The hype for the opening night of Saturday July 24^th was palpable in all of the local newspapers. Harrison stated the station’s signal was strong enough to be heard throughout Cape Cod and Southeastern Massachusetts. An additional promotion was begun by James Henderson, it was a cash prize of $25 for the telephone call received at the station from the furthest away by midnight of the first day on the air. All other telephone callers would receive complimentary copies of Cape Cod Magazine (the original version which was in print from 1915-1927)

Aerial view of Seapuit Golf Course from 1892, courtesy of Marstons Mills Historical Society

     Opening night of the new WSGC began at 7:30pm with a half-hour performance from Joe Rines and his Sunkist Garden Orioles orchestra. Sunkist Garden was briefly the name given to the Mill Hill Pavilion located where DiParma Restaurant currently stands in West Yarmouth. The music was followed by a brief introductory discussion by founder James Henderson. He then threw it to a discussion featuring Massachusetts Amateur golf champion Freddy Wright and golf course architect Donald Ross among others. It was fitting for the station’s headquarters. From 9-11pm there was a collection of dance music featuring the likes of Jim Moynihan’s Orchestra, soprano singer Jean Hinkle, and pianist H.C. LeBrie. The night was deemed a success. More than 200 telephone calls were received by midnight with the furthest point heard from being Lexington, Massachusetts approximately seventy miles away.

     WSGC was to be on the air every evening except for Monday between 7:30-11pm typically following the same format of musical interludes and discussions of topics central to life of Cape Cod. The programming found an audience with letters coming in from as far away as Concord, New Hampshire by the middle of August. William Harrison continued to bring in big time local musicians like Chet Copp and the Eagleston Inn Orchestra out of Hyannis. On August 17, 1926 Harrison was contacted by the Department of Commerce from Washington D.C. informing him that the station’s call letters were originally supposed to be WJBX not WSGC and that the department was immediately changing them.

Program Listing for WSGC's Opening Night, courtesy of Boston Globe Archives

     The new WJBX continued on with its successful programming six nights a week throughout the remained of the summer. It was announced that as Labor Day passed the radio station would cease operating until the following spring. The final night of Sunday September 5^th featured a worship service led by Reverend H.P. Almon Abbott and finally a short recital featuring Jean Hinkle. WJBX closed for the season at 11:30pm. On September 13, 1926 the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) created the first national radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

William Harrison stated that due to the station’s success he was excited for the second season in 1927, promising new shows from outside the confines of the Seapuit Golf Course station. The likely relaunch was set for June 1927. Unfortunately the relaunch never came. It is unclear why but WSGC/WJBX ended up being nothing more than a flash in the pan, a test run for what would be coming in the decades that followed.

     James Henderson went back to focusing on his real estate while Harrison went back to Boston to continue his radio career. The Seapuit Golf Course slowly declined through the Great Depression before the entire property was purchased by Canadian ‘Aluminum King’ E.K. Davis. The golf course was abandoned after severe damage during a hurricane in 1944 and today there are very few, if any, reminders of the golf course left.

     Cape Cod would not see a new radio station until the formation of the Cape Cod Broadcasting Company in 1937. Two years later came a proposal by Joseph Goulding for a station on 8 ½ acres of land on South Sea Avenue in West Yarmouth in June 1939. He said the station would have the call letters WOCB for ‘Only Cape Broadcasting.’ A 195-foot tall radio tower was erected and the second-ever Cape Cod radio station went live on October 2, 1940. It ran out of money and folded in May 1943 before being brought back to life by new owners E. Anthony and Sons in May 1944.

A postcard for WOCB from the early 1950's, courtesy of American Radio History.com

     In May 1948 WOCB became Cape Cod’s first FM station. It remained in business until Hurricane Bob felled the radio tower in August 1991 and the owners could not afford to rebuild. The station was purchased by automobile dealer Ernie Boch Sr. to become the flagship station for his Boch Broadcasting. Its call letters were changed to WXTK and the station is still on the air today.

     Despite being the first radio station on Cape Cod nary a word is spoken about WSGC. Perhaps because it only last two months. Perhaps because its home base the Seapuit Golf Course is long since gone WSGC lends itself to being a mere footnote in the long history of Cape Cod radio. However in the legacy of radio stations on Cape Cod there had to be a first and that one was WSGC in Osterville.

View my previous blog posts: In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Sullivan's Donut Shop

In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Angelo's Supermarket                                   

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