Harold "Hardface" Clanton

Before casinos brought legalized gambling and major entertainment to Tunica, African American entrepreneur Harold "Hardface" Clanton ran a thriving operation that offered games of chance, bootleg liquor, and leading blues performers. Nicknamed for the stone face he wore during poker games, he owned several businesses, including Harold's Cafe in Tunica and The Barn on Old Mhoon Landing Road, where much of the activity took place. He became a legend in Tunica and beyond in blues and gambling circles, was called "the black sheriff" of the county despite never holding office, and was reputed to be Tunica's first black millionaire. Working in an era when Tunica County followed its own course on gambling and alcohol laws, he was remembered with admiration by black and white residents alike, and his gambling activities helped fuel the local economy by drawing outside money and providing jobs. His work also helped pave the way for Tunica County's legalization of casino gambling in 1991, the first such legalization by a county on the Mississippi River. Born into a large farming family on May 29, 1916, Clanton had only a grammar school education according to his U.S. Army enlistment papers from 1943, but military service proved educational and profitable, and he returned with gambling winnings and enough experience to begin his own business. In addition to his Tunica establishments, he raised cotton and at times ran cafes in West Memphis and on Prichard Road in Tunica. B. B. King, Bobby Bland, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, Albert King, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2, Robert Nighthawk, Frank Frost, Houston Stackhouse, and many other blues artists performed for him and his patrons, while local bands he hired included groups led by drummers Sam Carr, James "Peck" Curtis, and Roosevelt "Barber" Parker, whose Silver Kings Band once had a radio show in Memphis on WDIA. Clanton's gambling reputation stretched from Las Vegas to Cicero, Illinois, and local stories told of stacks of cash won from visiting gamblers. Although dice games brought him money in Tunica, he especially liked a three-card poker game called kotch or cotch, and he often traveled to gamble in Texas, Louisiana, or Vicksburg, choosing a different car for each trip out of superstition. Some said his nickname came from his poker face, while another story held that in his younger years he sometimes slept with his face against the hard surface of craps tables while living the gambling life around the clock. He died on June 4, 1982, and so many people came to pay their respects that his funeral was held at the Rosa Fort High School gymnasium.

Tunica, Mississippi · United States