Internationally Notorious: The Story of The Cellar
Pat Kirkwood. Gambler. Stock car racer. Businessman. Beatnik Beelzebub. The great and powerful Ozymandian charlatan of chivalry and charm.
Lord of the underworld weirdos from hipsters to gangsters with connections to anyone from Gene Autry to Amon G. Carter, George Carlin to Jack Ruby.
A man of controversy and public service, admired and reviled by the public alike, this eccentric character and his after-hours coffeehouse the Cellar made their mark in the alternative circles of Fort Worth…and have their place in one of the darkest days in American history.
Dark Prince of Jacksboro Highway
Fay Kirkwood promoting a performance for the 1955 Texas Prison Rodeo.
Kirkwood had the “amusement” business in his blood. His mother Fay was a rodeo star that performed in Gene Autry shows and produced the first all-women’s rodeo during World War II. His father W.C. “Pappy” Kirkwood was a passionate gambling man who ran the Four Deuces Club at 2222 Jacksboro Highway (though if anyone asked, he was an ‘oil operator’).
Pappy Kirkwood and his club were among the gambling kingpins of the notorious Jacksboro Highway alongside Fred Browning, Bert Wakefield, Tiffin Hall, and Benny Binion. Son Pat grew up in the seedy world of illegal Texas gambling and speakeasy hospitality.
Watching his father wet the whistles and grease the palms of the likes of Amon G. Carter, Frank Buck, and Texas Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Pat learned a great deal about making friends, keeping friends, and handling enemies.
Pappy wanted a classy joint for high-rollers and knew how to enforce an atmosphere of respect despite the “anything goes” outlook on vice. Something Pat would take away when he would start the Cellar.
“Specializing in Coffee and Confusion”
September 24, 1959: The Cellar opens at 509 1/2 Main Street in downtown Fort Worth. Cover is a dollar. Girls get in free (because they bring the boys). There are no chairs. Only beanbags and low tables. There is no elevated stage, so the live music feels more intimate.
Unlike the honky-tonks in the area, the Cellar promotes jazz, folk, dirty blues, performance art, and freeform poetry. It attracts cool cats and hosts early performances of Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Top, and George Carlin.
Above the stage in bold white painted letters reads “YOU MUST BE WEIRD OR YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE”.
They do not sell alcohol (officially), so they are allowed to stay open until 6 in the morning. There are scantily clad waitresses serving coffees and cokes (spiked with grain alcohol and green food coloring if you were in the know). Sometimes they dance. Occasionally they strip. But no funny business. Pat Kirkwood invested plenty in his battalion of bouncers that were no strangers to putting drunken cowboys, would-be burglars, rowdy bikers, and grabby teen boys in their place.
“For three years running, the TCU varsity football team came down to the Cellar with the intent of whippin’ the beatniks. And three years running, the TCU varsity football team all wound up in the hospital.”
Arvel Stricklin, former house musician for the Cellar
Much like his father, Pat Kirkwood commanded a room of respect through good manners (and intimidation) and would not hesitate to confront those that disturbed the peace, man. The Cellar grew a reputation as a haven for misfits and a hotspot for mischief. Complaints of brawls, vagrancy, indecent exposure, and unsolicited beat poetry brought the cops to the coffeehouse on a regular basis to the point that Kirkwood had to request an injunction to keep police from harassing his customers.
Ah, yes. Truly fiendish acts from the seedy underbelly.
The hipster joint was not without its legitimate incidents, including a shootout in 1961, a stabbing in 1962, and a police raid apprehending a man wanted for the rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl in 1963.
House musician Johnny Carroll survived this stabbing and went on to manage the Cellar in Dallas.
However, it was later that year when Pat Kirkwood and the Cellar would receive national attention and public scrutiny in the aftermath of one of America’s greatest tragedies.
Two Jacks and the King of Clubs
As shock and grief loomed over the country, Dallas-Fort Worth was put under a microscope in a demand for answers. Just hours before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, seven of his off-duty secret service agents were in a club basement partying with members of the press at this hip joint they had heard of back in D.C.
They were at the Cellar.
The Warren Commission Report was quick to emphasize that the Cellar was a coffeehouse that did not serve alcoholic beverages, and the agents in question were only drinking grapefruit juice. It does not mention that the grapefruit juice was lousy with Everclear. Kirkwood was discreet with this information so no one would get in trouble, especially him. Things got crazier for Kirkwood when a particular thorn in his side decided to kill Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV.
Jack Ruby was a former mule for Al Capone and a wannabe-kingpin that ran the Carousel Club in Dallas. He was known by other club owners to be a nuisance, showing up looking for girls to poach for his strip acts. One of these girls was Karen “Little Lynn” Bennett from the Cellar, who would provide testimony about both employers to the Warren Commission. She had spoken with police investigators back in May about Pat Kirkwood and his particularly swingin’ parties.
While there was no substantial connection between Pat Kirkwood and the killings of President Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald, it was just enough to elevate his and the Cellar’s notoriety to a legendary status.
The original location closed its doors August 1972. He unsuccessfully ran for Tarrant County Sheriff in 1984 and became a real estate broker in 1985. He passed away in 2001.
Depending on who you asked, Pat Kirkwood could be the most eccentric man you’d ever met or the embodiment of pure evil. He was sociable but mysterious. Friendly but intimidating. Hospitable but demanding.
An anti-establishment folk legend and a duplicitous anti-hero. A man you hated to love and loved to hate.
Whatever one’s opinion may be of the man, he was a colorful character whose wild lifestyle and infamous coffeehouse brought interesting new ‘sights and sounds’ and contributed to the weirder aspects of DFW culture and history. After all, if you weren’t weird, you wouldn’t be here.
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