While the exact origins of the game itself is muddled at best, we do know that the game was played in 15 th-century European royal courts and is referenced in French nobles’ journals as well as Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Like so much of barroom culture, pool halls have long been male-dominated territory, the game’s competitive ferocity adding a helping of testosterone to the clubhouse mix. Even during my visit, it seemed as if I had accidentally strolled into a meeting of a secret, chalk-dust baptized fraternity. Now over a century old, the bar was-during the “golden age” of pool in the early 20 th century-an emblem of rip-roaring, pool shark culture and a haven for beer swilling men, where roughnecks and Tennessee gentlemen engaged in friendly competition over a shot and a beer. Just a stroll away from the roving packs of tourists humming Joe Jackson’s “Walking in Memphis” and the Technicolor blight of Hard Rock Café, People’s scripted neon fizzed modestly in the night sky. Founded in 1904, People’s firmly carries the torch as the oldest continually operating pool hall in the city and, perhaps, the entire country. When I went looking for a holdout in Memphis last fall, all signs pointed me towards the legendary People’s Billiard Club. Like the former bad boy who succumbs to a bad back and trades in his motorcycle for a Subaru, pool halls are just not as wild as they used to be. In the 21 st century, the game’s havens are once again experiencing the kind of identity crisis that often comes with age.

These seedy associations have become so commonplace over the course of the 20th century, that it’s difficult to imagine pool’s previous, far more respectable, incarnations as a game beloved by Renaissance-era monarchs and Civil War soldiers (who even collected trading cards of their favorite billiard players). It’s also a game long tied to societal ills, with pool halls serving as the much-maligned dens of sin where game and drink rendezvous. Of all the barroom games out there-from darts to video poker-pool has always struck me as the most romantic, even in supremely decrepit environs.

Charles city pool billiards bar