Grand Jury

Perhaps the most momentous example of gambling and gangster activity in Waukesha was witnessed on January 17th, 1938, when Circuit Judge C. M. Davidson ordered a Grand Jury to investigate the gambling in Waukesha County.

"It seems fitting that facts be made a matter of permanent record for future generations... An extraordinary situation, without precedent, exists in the County. The greedy ruthless hand of the organized racketeer was upon those keepers of taverns who would have liked to run decent and law-abiding places; the ring was reaching out wider and wider for new fields in which profits not earned by any kind of HONEST labor could be harvested." - Judge C. M. Davidson

What followed shocked everybody, as over 250 witnesses were brought in to be questioned. Corrupt government officials on all levels were questioned, and a huge gambling racket was uncovered. At one point, a store of confiscated slot machines at the County Courthouse simply disappeared, prompting an even stronger investigation from the Grand Jury. The slot machines were eventually recovered.>

The Grand Jury was dismissed in February 1940, two and a half years after being called. Finally, Waukesha County was freed from the grip of organized crime, and gambling was not to be seen again until made legal in the late 1980s.

From The Pages Of The Waukesha Freeman, 1940