Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6A
MAINSTREET NEWSPAPERS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
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We Remember 50 Years Aso:
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Floyd Hoard (left) was elected in September, 1964 to the position of solicitor of the Piedmont Judicial
Circuit. His opponet, the incumbent, resigned early from the job and Hoard was sworn in on November
30, 1964, a month early.
chips, boiled eggs and pickles for sale, too. And it had a
television for Park to watch when he wasn’t selling booze.
Beer sold for $2-$3 a six pack; vodka and gin, $4 a pint;
and liquor $5 a pint.
Park worked the operation at the garage next to his house,
but other people ran locations around the county that Park
controlled.
At Park’s “yellow house” operation, customers didn’t
go inside. They walked up to the front door, which had a
hole cut in the upper part with a shelf that folded down.
Customers would place their order and the booze would be
handed through the hole in the door to them.
One of Park’s bootlegging employees at the “yellow
house” said that location took in anywhere from $300 to
$1,400 a week. He turned all the money over to Park twice a
day, morning and evening. He was paid $100 a week regard
less of how much he sold, he later said.
GBI agent Angel remembers that Park’s enterprise at his
house was so busy, people would jokingly complain that the
sheriff’s department should send deputies to “direct traffic”
for customers.
On one of his undercover buys, Angel said he asked Park
if he’d been busy that day.
“I’ve been so busy that I haven't been able to watch the
ballgame, ” Park replied.
DIDN’T TRUST THE SHERIFF
In early 1967, Hoard decided to raid Park’s operation in
a bid to close it down once and for all. Exactly why he
decided to take that action at that time is unclear.
Agent Angel said Hoard told him that his two teenage
kids would come home from school talking about how
open the Park operation was running and that he had
heard the joke about needing cops to direct traffic at Park’s
business.
“I’ve listened to the kids ’ stories and everywhere I go
people say, ‘Why don’t you do something about it, ’ so
I’m finally going to do something about it, ” Angel recalled
Hoard saying leading up to his plans to raid Park.
Hoard may have been feeling some political pressure by
then, too. Hoard and Judge Dunahoo had run on a reform
and clean-up the circuit platform in 1964. There would be
another election in 1968.
Whatever the reasons, Hoard brought in the GBI and
state revenue agents in the spring of 1967 to help with the
Park probe, but he didn’t tell the local sheriff. He had been
warned by a local GBI agent to keep the sheriff out of the
loop lest Park get wind of what was going on.
Imogene Hoard remembers that 40-50 state agents gath
ered at their rural house after dark to plan the raids, turn
ing off their car lights at they drove up the long driveway.
Undercover law enforcement officers like Angel made
purchases of illegal booze to help Hoard get warrants for
the raid and a court order to padlock Park’s operations.
Angel said he made 14 buys at Park’s house and 10 at the
“yellow house” between April 29 and May 5. On some of
those buys, Angel was wearing clothes loaned to him by
Hoard’s 14-year-old son, “Dickey.”
The big raid of Park’s operation was scheduled for
Saturday afternoon, May 6, 1967.
But there was the question about the sheriff. Hoard and
Sheriff L. G. “Snuffy” Perry had what appeared to be a dif
ficult relationship. There was a story at the time — perhaps
just rumor — that Perry and Hoard had a meeting at which
Perry told the solicitor, “You do the prosecuting and I’ll do
the policing. ”
Whatever the situation, agent Angel said there “appeared
to be a rift” between the two officials. At the time, sheriffs
were very powerful under the old county unit system and
very protective of their “turf.”
Hoard didn’t fully trust Perry, but he felt that they had to
work together.
A few evenings before the raid, Hoard called GBI agent
R.J. Cleghorn, Angel’s boss, and asked him to come to his
house. The two men took a ride in Hoard’s pickup truck.
7 think I ought to tell the sheriff, ” Cleghorn later recalled
Hoard saying about the impending raid.
Cleghorn replied, “Solicitor, you are the one handling
the raid... if you want to tell the sheriff, you tell him. ”
But Cleghorn also pointed out that if Park got word of the
raid, it would hurt the effort to shut him down.
“The fine you get off of a man like that is not a drop in
the bucket, ” Cleghorn told Hoard that night as they drove
around the county. “The merchandise you take away from
him is where you tear him up. ”
SHERIFF TOLD — RAID DONE EARLY
At some point that Wednesday or Thursday in early May
1967, Hoard told Sheriff Perry of the Park raid planned for
Saturday afternoon.
On Thursday night before the raid, Hoard went to
Cleghorn’s GBI office in Gainesville to draw up the war
rants. While he was there, he asked Cleghorn to call
agent Angel and have him go make buys at both the “yel
low house” and Park’s garage. A little while later, Angel
showed up at Cleghorn’s office with some beer and whis
key he’d bought from Park.
Hoard, sitting behind the desk, reached over to the
booze and said, “That means everything to me. You all
don’t know what that does mean to me. ”
Cleghorn said he knew exactly what Hoard meant.
“You ’ve told the sheriff and you thought (Angel) wouldn ’t
buy anything — (they) wouldn’t sell him nothing. ”
“That’s exactly right, ” Hoard replied.
For a moment, Hoard thought the raid had been kept a
secret and that he could trust Perry.
That confidence lasted barely 24 hours. On Friday night
before the planned raid, Angel was watching the Park
operation from nearby. At about 10 p.m., he went into
Park’s bootlegging garage to make another buy. There, he
saw a large truck backed up and men loading up the booze
from Park’s place.
Angel drove to a pay phone at 1-85 and called Cleghorn
to alert him to the movement. Park has obviously been
tipped off about the raid planned for the following day.
Cleghorn then called Hoard, who was taking a bath.
“I need to talk to him right quick, ” Cleghorn told Hoard’s
wife, Imogene, who had answered the phone.
Hoard got out of the bath and when he heard what Angel
had seen, told Cleghorn to meet him in Pendergrass.
Cleghorn, Angel and another GBI agent were waiting
near Park’s house when Hoard arrived. He had Sheriff
Perry with him and a local revenue agent. The revenue
agent didn’t want to be seen, so he lay down in a car and
Angel drove him down the road 200 feet and left him there
to hide.
The raid scheduled for the following day had been
blown, so Hoard decided to go ahead and do the raid that
night.
Hoard, Perry and Cleghorn went to Park’s house, but
found it locked up.
“Iguess we’ll have to wait until morning, ” Cleghorn later
quoted Sheriff Perry as saying. “Everything’s locked up, we
can’t get nobody to the door. ”
Cleghorn said he had a key — an axe in the trunk of his
car.
The three discussed what to do and eventually, Hoard
and the sheriff went back a second time to Park’s house.
A few minutes later, they drove out with Park in the car and
took him to jail in Jefferson.
“We hauled beer all night, ” Cleghorn said when he testi
fied in court about that night.
A total of 12 places across the county were hit and 14
people were arrested, including Park, on a total of 53
charges. There was $21,700 worth of booze confiscated,
31 cases of whiskey and 2,254 cases of beer. Some of the
booze was found in an old “meat house” behind Park’s
home.
Of those charged, 13 posted a $500 bond and were
released from jail while Park was required to post a “pro
fessional” bond.
But they didn’t get all of the beer. One of those arrested
got out of jail the next day and returned to Park’s house
where he got about 40 cases of beer from a “little old car”
that was hidden. He took it to the “yellow house” and was
back in business Saturday night. Law enforcement officials
went back on Sunday and arrested him again, confiscating
the 30 cases of beer he had left.
A front page photo in The Herald that week shows the
beer stacked high on the front porch at the old county jail
with Sheriff Perry standing in front.
On May 23, 1967, a court order to padlock Park’s various
locations was issued by Judge Dunahoo.
Another bootlegger, an associate of Park, attempted to
claim the beer was his in a bid to get it back and keep it
from being destroyed, but Dunahoo denied his motion.
INCENTIVE TO KILL?
Agent Angel believes that padlock order was what put
into motion Park’s plan to have Hoard killed.
Getting arrested and paying a fine was one thing — hav
ing seven or eight locations padlocked would put Park out
of business.
“This time Hoard petitioned the court for padlocking
and I think that was the beginning of (Park’s) decision to
kill Hoard, ” Angel said.
But Sheriff Perry never carried out the court order to
padlock Park’s businesses. That lack of action became a
huge issue for Perry after Hoard was killed.
Hoard was aware that he was making enemies with his
crackdown on local crime rackets. Sometime around 1966,
he began to carry a gun.
The Barrow County sheriff recalled that Hoard had indi
cated to him the Saturday before the murder that he was
in danger, but didn’t share any details.
Hoard also told an old college friend in July 1967 that
an informant had told him, “You are fooling with some
people who will kill you. ”
And Hoard’s brother, Joe, recalled that Floyd had asked
him what he could do to stop his car from being bombed.
Joe suggested that he put Scotch tape on the hood and
check it every day to see if it had been broken.
Hoard didn’t follow that suggestion on the morning of
August 7, 1967.
NEXT WEEK PART 3:
‘WHO WOULD HAVE DONE THIS?’
Jackson County sheriff L.G. “Snuffy” Perry stands on the porch of the old county jail in front of some
of the beer confiscated in a large May 1967 raid of the A.C. “Cliff” Park bootlegging operation. Over
$21,000 of booze was confiscated and solicitor Floyd Hoard petitioned the court to have Park’s opera
tions padlocked. This padlock order may be what put into motion the decision to have Hoard killed.