The story below is from our January/February 2020 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Roanoke’s first major businessman’s club was a short-lived, scandalous affair.
Courtesy of the Virginia Room
The City Hotel on Jefferson Street at Salem Avenue became known as the Exchange Building in 1890 and was home to the Commercial Club.
Large mirrors, plush chairs, Belgian carpets, billiard tables, writing desks supplied with stationary and ink wells, the tidy display of the major metropolitan daily newspapers, fresh floral bouquets, a reception room, telephone, and a small meeting room just off the grand lounge. These were a few of the amenities of the Roanoke Commercial Club located on the second floor of the Exchange Building.
It was 1890 and Roanoke was open for business. “If a person meets a friend on the street and wants to have a confidential chat, this is just the place for it,” noted the Roanoke Times. “It is a mighty lever. The union of forces which the Commercial Club represents can do three-fold the work of its individual members acting separately.”
The club opened on September 27th with a who’s who roster of Roanoke’s business class - bankers, judges, physicians, railway officials, and entrepreneurs. The driving force behind the enterprise was a Kentuckian, Hinton Helper.
Helper had organized a similar club in Louisville and saw the potential for one in the Magic City. He envisioned a club of a thousand members that would shape and grow Roanoke. So enamored were the members of the club with Helper that there was talk of commissioning his bust to adorn the main entrance.
Helper had caught the attention of Roanoke’s leaders when he penned a lengthy article on the city for the New York Sun. He was subsequently invited to speak in Roanoke and touted the idea for a Commercial Club. Helper and his proposal were quickly embraced and within a few months, he and his wife had moved to the city.
News of the Commercial Club was reported regularly in the city’s newspapers. Helper knew how to promote and the ink being dedicated to his venture was proof. When the club opened, all the notable businessmen were present, and if not on opening night they made certain to gain membership within the following week.
Those who “autographed” (signed the registry book) at the Commercial Club found themselves listed in the daily society columns. Front-page coverage was given to the club’s weekly meetings, and the matters championed were significant. The club supported a public hospital for the city and tried to convince officials of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to come to Roanoke.
By the end of the club’s first month, they welcomed to the city British and German industrialists interested in steel and iron production.
Helper could not have been more pleased. Membership was growing, the press was raving, Europeans were visiting, and the club’s influence was unchallenged. Helper enlisted the aid of his cousin, Walter Murphy, of Salisbury, North Carolina, to serve as assistant secretary. The Commercial Club was from all appearances a quick and emerging success.
But there were rumors.
Helper dropped comments that he was having marital troubles. He claimed little tolerance for his wife of fifteen years and disparaged the institution of marriage itself. His marriage, however, was considered a personal matter by most and was overshadowed by his skill in promoting the club’s interests and cultivating its many prospects.
With the club barely open for more than a month, Helper announced he was leaving temporarily for surgery in New York City. Club members were distressed by the news but were assured by Helper that his condition was not serious. Friends offered to look in on Helper’s wife who was herself in ill health.
While Helper was away, a friend spied a notice in the Philadelphia Press as he lunched at the club that seemed quite odd. Among the hotel arrivals in that city were the names of Mr. and Mrs. Hinton Helper. Being advised of the notice, Mrs. Helper rummaged through her husband’s suits and found letters, many in fact, signed “Madeline” which even addressed Helper as “My dear husband” and solicited from him money for hotel bills, dresses, and trips. Given Mrs. Helper’s frail condition, her friends demanded Helper’s immediate return.
Meanwhile, officials at the club had inquired as to Helper’s surgery and quickly discovered that on the day he was supposedly having surgery in New York he had attended a land sale in Petersburg, Virginia, then spent a day or so thereafter in Richmond.
Murphy, being Helper’s assistant and relation, contacted him and asked for an explanation. After sending several telegrams, Helper finally responded indicating he would be returning to Roanoke soon and wiring $60 for his wife.
The Roanoke Times, the same newspaper that had a few weeks prior championed the suggestion of having Helper’s bust placed at the entrance to the Commercial Club, made calls including one to Helper’s sister. “She denounced him in the strongest terms,” the newspaper reported. Helper’s associates were now insisting that he was delayed in his return to Roanoke due to business in Richmond.
The newspaper followed up and found that Helper was not there and not engaged in any business in that city. The Commercial Club simultaneously announced that Helper had resigned due to “ill health.”
Hinton Helper was in Philadelphia with Madeline. He had been there for several days with no intent to return to Roanoke.
Walter Murphy was quickly promoted to secretary at the Commercial Club, and Mrs. Helper left for her parents’ home in Savannah. With all the dirty linen of the Helpers publicly aired (“A Case of Abandonment?” read one front-page headline), the club was anxious to distance itself from Helper.
Murphy moved to enhance the club’s appeal with billiard tables and liquor service. This met with the ready approval of the club’s board. The Commercial Club could now get on with its mission of promoting the business growth of Roanoke. Club members unanimously expressed confidence in Murphy and the organization’s future such that the club rebuffed an effort to be absorbed by the Real Estate Exchange.
The club maintained a steady schedule of activities, visitors, and public pronouncements on a variety of issues. Membership grew as men enjoyed the social elements as much as the business relationships. The club published pamphlets to promote Roanoke to outside investors and hosted businessmen from several surrounding states.
In early January, however, the Commercial Club was broadsided by another scandal. This one involved Murphy. He had left town, but not for a mistress. Murphy had slipped into the club’s membership a man named LaBaer that Murphy claimed was his old college roommate. LaBaer was a pool shark who was picking clean the well-liquored club members at Murphy’s orchestrated billiard nights.
Once club members caught on that LaBaer was skilled with the cue, the scheme came to an end but not before Murphy and LaBaer had pocketed significant sums. Murphy had also been organizing all-night poker at the club.
The poker games were invitation-only involving men not members of the club, and Murphy and LaBaer racked up chips as the chips of everyone else “melted like an ice chip on a sidewalk in July” according to one disgruntled player. One night’s poker game went until 3 a.m. between Murphy and Moten Word, a young official with the Norfolk & Western.
When Word lost serious money, he charged Murphy with discarding cards after the draw. When Word’s wife complained to the club president that Murphy was running a poker den out of the club’s back room, Murphy’s gambling operation unraveled.
The club’s board promptly dismissed Murphy. Rumor had it that many were looking for Murphy, victims no doubt of he and LaBaer. Murphy’s exit from Roanoke was during the dark of night and with a slew of accounts payable.
The Roanoke Commercial Club could not survive its second scandal. The club re-organized, decided it would only hire “natives,” and changed its name to the Roanoke Board of Trade. The Roanoke Commercial Club had lasted three months.
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