Monarch Saloon Memphis T-Shirt - Lightweight Vintage Style 

This Bluescentric Brand t-shirt is available in premium lightweight 4.2oz vintage style sizes up to 4XL. Solid colors are 100% combed, ringspun cotton. Athletic Heather is 90% cotton. All other Heather colors are 52% cotton, 48% poly. Sizes run true. These t shirts are lighter and slightly more fitted compared to the Classic Gildan tees. 

In a time when Memphis was known for tough establishments, The Monarch stood out as one of the most notorious. 

Operating since at least 1908 and closing in the 1950s, The Monarch was a rowdy, ornate gambling parlor, constructed to be “the finest in the South” at great expense by Memphis gangster Jim Kinnane. 

Filled with secret entrances, trap doors and seedy back rooms, The Monarch Club earned the nickname “The Castle of Missing Men”, because, rumor had it, a funeral home across the back alley would “disappear” bodies of victims, down-on-their-luck gamblers, trouble makers & debtors who got in over their heads. 

The club’s heyday existed at the same time B.B. King & Elvis Presley searched for paths into the music business while watching W.C. Handy, Furry Lewis & Bukka White perform on the street. Future gangster Machine Gun Kelly hung in front of The Monarch hocking prohibition-defying bottles of liquor. Robert Wilkins even wrote a song about The Monarch, “Old Jim Canan’s”.

The building still stands at 340 Beale Street, ironically now a Memphis Police sub-station. Which is probably good, because Beale Street during the time of The Monarch’s raucous reign would reportedly have ambulances lined up for a half mile to cart off the evening’s victims.

After The Monarch closed, it became a short-lived record label called House of Sound.