Socorro's territorial saloons - Part 2

Fred Emillio migrated from Lincoln County and arrived in Socorro with his family, in early 1923, to team up with Damian Padilla to operate a pool hall. The Emillio family had long been established in Lincoln County. A portrait of Fred’s grandfather once hung in the Lincoln County courthouse. According to the family, it now hangs in the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. Fred’s son, Willie, recalled riding into town “perched atop the family belongings in the back of his father’s Model T Ford pickup.” Tragically, Padilla’s and Emillio’s pool hall was a short-lived venture due to the bane of many such establishments — fire — which broke out early one Monday morning in March 1923. The fire took out the entire block “extending south from the Plaza to the Sedillo store in the middle of the block facing Court Street on the east.” Only the superhuman efforts of the local hose company succeed in saving Sedillo’s two-story building. The Socorro Chieftain described the ruined block as “one of the old landmarks, being among the first buildings erected in Socorro.” About this same time, Amos Green was seeking another manager for his business and Padilla & Emillio, suddenly available due to the extenuating circumstances, moved across the Plaza. The furniture and fixtures in their pool hall were insured for $1,500 and this no doubt eased the pain of the transition. Judge Green died on Jan. 13, 1925. Fred Emillio remained at Green’s Pool Hall throughout Prohibition and after. It seems that the Green family either continued to sub-let the business as before, or Padilla and Emillio may have purchased their interest after Green’s death. Fred would not permit his sons to work behind the bar prior to their coming of age. He did, however, allow them to do custodial work, clean glasses, and more, but no bar work. The boys “helped out around the place, listening with youthful imagination to the many great tales emanating from the Green Front’s historical past as (they) swept and polished.” Willie Emillio recalled several anecdotal stories from those Prohibition days of polishing and sweeping. Yes, Fred did keep a well-secluded stock of Kentucky’s finest on hand to soothe the parched throats of his more trusted clientele.
“Dad always sought out the very finest of whiskeys and refused to handle the cheap stuff … he bought old stocks of the highest quality ‘bottled-in-bond’ bourbon whenever he could,” he recounted. Willie remembered his dad sterilizing bottles and affixing labels. One label, we’ll call it the “green,” was for the lower priced product and the other, the “black” label, for the “premium.” But the same high-quality spirit went into each! The working class fellows went for the more affordable green, while the upper echelon went for the black “and none of them ever knew the difference.”...more