AL RITCHIE: “It seems that bootlegger Al Ritchie had a sense of
humor based on this 1934 story about Olean’s Sunset Inn in the
early 1920s,” writes J.R. Herzog, who sent us a copy of same.

The Sunset Inn was a roadhouse originally established and
operated near Olean by Albert Ritchie, “slain gang leader.”

Ritchie was transforming an old country estate into a
prohibition-era road home, work that was noticed and admired by a
sedate Olean society matron, who mistook the intended purpose of
the palatial establishment. She thought, as its name implied, it
would be a hospitable roadside inn.

“The captivated matron got in touch with Ritchie, the owner, and
asked him if it would be possible to engage Sunset Inn for an
exclusive bridge luncheon on its completion and if it would be
possible for him to cater to such a function,” the article
reads.

Ritchie, “who loved to do things on a grand scale,” assured the
prominent Olean personage that he would handle the event. “The
dowager (subsequently) issued invitations to a select list, and the
guests arrived at the inn to find it decorated into a veritable
bower of beauty.”

The article notes that Ritchie, in “stiffly formal attire,” was
charm itself. He arranged for an orchestra to play and uniformed
waitresses to attend to guests.

“While their complexions may have been slightly over-colored and
their tresses showed artificial tints,” the article reads, “the
girls gave perfect service and indeed service was their
specialty.”

Also at the event were formally attired male attendants, who,
the article notes, in working hours might have been recognized as
deadly efficient gunmen of the Ritchie bodyguard.

“Ritchie spent many times the amount he was paid to show the
socialites how the scion of a noble Italian family who came to
America to become a booze baron could ‘shoot the work’ in the line
of entertainment.”

Meanwhile Olean husbands “were chuckling over the party their
wives were participating in – they knew the Inn and its gals.”

When wives were told at what kind of an establishment they had
spent their afternoon, were they shocked? Apparently not. The
article relates they had “one grand afternoon anyway, thanks to the
suave, considerate Mr. Ritchie.”

Al, the article notes, had a sense of humor as well as an
overdeveloped eye for the grand and artistic, a combination that
finally got him “bumped off” by a gunman in Bradford.