by Phillip Obermiller
The odds are that few trail users have ever heard of the Arrowhead Inn, the Clermont County casino that flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. Local folks found a trifecta of wins there: employment for the Branch Hill residents who had steady work during the Depression, enjoyment for high rollers from Indian Hill, and enrichment for the county officials paid to look the other way. The proprietors prospered by running rigged games and selling bootleg whiskey.
The story opens in 1913 with Edward Gaither, an entrepreneur originally from Kentucky, running a “saloon and gambling house” on Fifth Street in Cincinnati. Gaither was an avid golfer, but as a Black man he wasn’t welcome on most courses. It’s a safe bet that’s why he bought 30 acres in Branch Hill to open the Elmstead Golf Course. One of Gaither’s Clermont County golfing acquaintances, Joseph Bauer, decided to lease an old barn on the property to start a “supper club.”
Bauer wielded clout with the local politicos, but couldn’t ante up the funds to create a decent venue and the club soon folded. With a new backer, Sam Schraeder of “the Cleveland Syndicate” staking him, and with the assistance of brothers Harold and Sam Nason, reputed “gamblers, hustlers, and Bootleggers,” Bauer reopened the Arrowhead Inn as a private club with a back room featuring craps tables, roulette wheels, blackjack tables, poker tables and slot machines. 
In addition to gambling there were daytime golf, canoeing, and bridge games on offer; evening attractions included fine dining, dancing to big band orchestras, and stage shows featuring comedians, magicians, singers, and the Arrow-ettes, “a chorus of pretty dancing girls.”
Bauer and his associates had hit the jackpot.
With the end of Prohibition in late 1933 profits from the sale of bootleg liquor ended and the rigged games in the back room began to generate complaints. County prosecutor Frank Roberts initially tolerated the Arrowhead because “It catered to the wealthy of Indian Hill and employed the poor of Branch Hill.” As the complaints mounted, however, the authorities decided to double down on enforcement.
Although Frank Roberts and Joseph Bauer had been on friendly terms, with Bauer’s sudden death (some say naturally, others say suspiciously) in September of 1937 all bets were off. On November 14, 1937 Roberts led a raid on the Arrowhead, removing three truckloads of furniture and gaming equipment. Some of the furnishings apparently made their way into the recently built Clermont County Court House. Sam Schraeder subsequently became “the kingpin of gambling in Northern Kentucky” while the Nason brothers moved on to careers in Newport and Las Vegas.
The Inn closed after the raid, reopening as a restaurant, nightclub, and event space that operated through the 1940s and 1950s. The Elmstead Golf Course was bought in 1969 and developed into the Arrowhead apartment complex. 
Today the trail runs between those apartments to the east and the former location of the Inn to the southwest. The site of the once vibrant Arrowhead Inn is now a rubble-strewn patch of land between the trail and the Little Miami River.
If you’re on the trail near mile marker 44.5 and find yourself with a sudden, inexplicable hankering to play the slots, the FLMSP stands ready to help: slip a few dollars into a slot in one of the yellow donation posts located at most trailheads. Your payoff will be a well-maintained trail.
FLMSP member Phil Obermiller is a Far South trail Sentinel. He thanks CHPL reference librarian Michelle Savoti and local history buffs Cody Amburgey, Pat Hornschemeier, and Dan Peterson for their insight and assistance.
July 2024
