{"id":2510,"date":"1956-04-14T16:27:22","date_gmt":"1956-04-14T16:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/?p=2510"},"modified":"2014-09-02T19:43:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T19:43:22","slug":"old-peoria-as-wide-open-as-the-gateway-to-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/1956\/04\/14\/old-peoria-as-wide-open-as-the-gateway-to-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Peoria: As Wide Open As The Gateway To Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back at Peoria in the days before reform took hold, the <em>Peoria Journal Star\u00a0<\/em>in 1956 viewed the earlier city as rough and wild, an &#8220;Empire of Vice.&#8221; Gambling, prostitution, &#8220;female impersonation,&#8221; and the drug trade \u00a0were everyday elements in the city. Ironically, the\u00a0<em>Peoria Journal Star<\/em>&#8216;s antecedents in the 1940s\u2014the\u00a0<em>Peoria Star\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0<em>Peoria Journal-Transcript<\/em>\u2014often looked the other way at the Empire of Vice during its heyday.\u00a0<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is part of a five-part series by the <em>Peoria Journal Star<\/em> in April 1956:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Old Peoria: As Wide Open As The Gateway To Hell\" href=\"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/1956\/04\/14\/old-peoria-as-wide-open-as-the-gateway-to-hell\/\">Old Peoria: As Wide Open As the Gateway To Hell <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Old Peoria: Fixed Cops, Gang Murders, Kidnapping\" href=\"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/1956\/04\/15\/old-peoria-fixed-cops-gang-murders-wholesale-kidnapping\/\">Old Peoria: Fixed Cops, Gang Murders, Wholesale Kidnapping<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"This Was Peoria\" href=\"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/1956\/04\/15\/this-was-peoria\/\">This Was Peoria<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/assets\/1956_4_OldPeoria_JournalStarSeries1.pdf\">In Old Peoria It Was &#8216;Murder&#8230;&#8217;<\/a> (PDF)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/assets\/1956_4_OldPeoria_JournalStarSeries1.pdf\">Old Peoria Was &#8216;Right&#8217; For Sheltons Until Death Closed the Books<\/a> (PDF)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back at Peoria in the days before reform took hold, the Peoria Journal Star\u00a0in 1956 viewed the earlier city as rough and wild, an &#8220;Empire of Vice.&#8221; Gambling, prostitution, &#8220;female impersonation,&#8221; and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,119,374,347,261,401,22,18],"tags":[108,100,34,90,98],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1919-40","category-1953-1962","category-2-overviews-of-the-woodruff-era","category-2-empire-of-vice","category-reform_7","category-portraits-of-the-city","category-reform-this-town","category-sin-city","tag-bombing","tag-gambling","tag-prostitution","tag-urban-reform","tag-vice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Old Peoria: As Wide Open As The Gateway To Hell - Richard Pryor&#039;s Peoria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.becomingrichardpryor.com\/pryors-peoria\/1956\/04\/14\/old-peoria-as-wide-open-as-the-gateway-to-hell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Old Peoria: As Wide Open As The Gateway To Hell - Richard Pryor&#039;s Peoria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Looking back at Peoria in the days before reform took hold, the Peoria Journal Star\u00a0in 1956 viewed the earlier city as rough and wild, an &#8220;Empire of Vice.&#8221; 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