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Cedar Country Club/Mason’s Farm

In 1935, Benjamin “Benny” Mason purchased a 160-acre farm in Solon on Cochran Road south of Route 43 and established what eventually became known as “Mason’s Farm,” a popular resort, country club, and jazz venue. A well-known game operator, Mason opened what he initially named the Cedar Country Club in 1936. Upon the vene’s opening, Mason remarked, “I want to do something for my people. I want to make this farm a place where they can relax and enjoy themselves. I want to provide a place for them comparable to other races.” Despite its rural location beyond the east suburbs of Cleveland, one of the features Mason boasted was the Cedar Country Club’s proximity to the city itself, claiming only a twenty-five-minute drive from Carnegie and East 55th Street in Cleveland. With the accessibility of the resort, both in location and its integrated clientele, the farm quickly became a popular destination for visitors across the country as well as Clevelanders. The Cedar Country Club gained national acclaim as the “showplace of Ohio.” The resort included furnished cabins, a restaurant, and nightclub. Some of its features included a riding academy, picnic grounds, and occasionally tours of the farm for students.

I want to do something for my people. I want to make this farm a place where they can relax and enjoy themselves. I want to provide a place for them comparable to other races.
– Benny Mason

The Cedar Country Club also functioned as a nightclub and jazz venue that boasted popular artists like jazz pianist Tiny Grimes, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and many others. The Cedar Country Club, which one Call and Post feature lauded as “Ohio’s Swankiest Summer Resort,” was routinely described as luxurious and enjoyed a listing in the 1939 edition of the Negro Motorists’ Green Book. While it looked like a barn from the exterior, the clubhouse boasted a bar in the basement, another bar on the ground floor as well as a dance hall, and a lounge and private rooms on the second floor. It was available to be rented out for private parties, banquets, and other events. Mason renamed Cedar Country Club “Mason’s Farm” in 1941 and hired restaurateur U. S. Dearing as manager. In addition to its leisure destination status, Mason’s Farm was also a working farm with more than 2,500 head of livestock and 145 of its 160 acres set aside for growing corn, wheat, and oats.

Mason himself was an eccentric character in Cleveland history, often running into legal trouble. Some of the allegations against him included purchasing stolen jewelry, transporting alcohol during Prohibition, and the frequent policy promoting that made Mason famous. Mason was known as the “king of policy games,” a form of lottery, as he notoriously ran illegal numbers rackets. In the summer of 1932, Benny Mason became the target of the Mayfield Road mob. In a number of attempts by the Mayfield Road mob to expand their own numbers games into areas controlled by Mason, four men were arrested outside of Mason’s home and thought to be there to kill him.

Throughout his time both as a policy operator and owning the farm, Mason was notorious for “resigning” as the lead policy operator, but ultimately would move his operation’s headquarters and resume his business. Despite protests from management that claimed no gambling was permitted on the property, policy games continued to take place at the resort, making it a well-known gambling center in Cleveland. Residents in Solon in 1938 explained that while they did not see any “big-time gambling,” Mason’s Farm did have several slot machines. Though this reputation may have accounted for its disappearance from the Green Book after just one year, Mason’s Farm remained very popular throughout the 1940s.

However, Mason redirected a significant portion of his wealth from these illicit games to support his community. Mason was known for his philanthropy, particularly for his donations to Black churches in Cleveland as well as paying educational costs for Black students. Throughout the early to mid-twentieth century across the country, policy and numbers games were cornerstones in providing economic opportunities to Black communities. Gambling rackets not only provided employment opportunities to Black residents in the community, but they also became a widespread source of investment into businesses and philanthropy.

Mason’s establishment closed in 1951 and was sold to the Nickel Plate Railroad to form an industrial park. Benny Mason was involved in a fatal car crash in 1954 near London, Ohio, that took his life and the life of his friend Walter Woodford as well as critically injuring his wife Blanche.

Green Book Details

The Cedar Country Club appears in the Green Book in 1939, where it is erroneously located on Route 43 in Solon under the category Country Clubs.

Resources

  • “April 3, 1954.” Black Quotidian. blackquotidian.supdigital.org/bq/april-3-1954.
  • “Benny Mason Moves: Numbers Operator Leaves Solon Farm Sold to NKP.” Plain Dealer. January 30, 1952.
  • “Benny Mason Opens New Bar.” Call & Post. January 12, 1952.
  • “The Cedar Country Club: Ohio’s Swankiest Summer Resort.” Call & Post. June 2, 1938.
  • “Class Visits Farm.” Call & Post. August 31, 1939.
  • “Crash on Highway Ends Bennie Mason’s Career: Walter Woodford, Lifelong Friend, Dies in Hospital.” Call & Post. April 3, 1954.
  • “Denies Club Gambling: Manager at Benny Mason Farm Resort Explains Setup.” Plain Dealer. June 3, 1938.
  • Display Ad 14 – No Title. Call & Post. May 10, 1941.
  • Fuster, John. “Mason’s Farm Opens Its 1942 Season Tonite Thurs. May 28: Farm Features Coleman Hawkins.” Call & Post. May 30, 1942.
  • “Hear Benny Mason Is Ready to Open New Policy Joint.” Plain Dealer. June 15, 1941.
  • House-Soremekun, Bessie. Confronting the Odds: African American Entrepreneurship in Cleveland. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2002.
  • Jessamy, Ken. “It Cost $100000 But the ‘Farm’ Is America’s Finest Colored Showplace.” Call & Post. May 25, 1939.
  • “Mason Denies Charge: Retired Policy King Fights Federal Liquor Case.” Plain Dealer. March 30, 1939.
  • Mason’s Farm pamphlet. Solon Historical Society. www.facebook.com/solonhistoricalsociety/posts/benny-masons-farm-was-located-on-cochran-road-across-from-the-current-service-de/2736055193141772/.
  • “Mason Pleads Not Guilty.” Plain Dealer. September 23, 1942. 
  • “Orders Watch On Poolroom Haunts: Merrick Gives Impetus to Campaign Against Racketeers.” Plain Dealer. July 28, 1932.
  • “Police Told of Gun Battle in Policy District.” Plain Dealer. July 31, 1932.
  • “Policy Fanciers Await New Deal: Big Changes Expected as Benny Goes West.” Plain Dealer. January 31, 1939. 
  • Skinner, Chad O. “300 Cars at Farm of Benny Mason: Policy King’s Solon Place is Interracial Mecca.” Plain Dealer. May 31, 1938. 
  • “The Brains of the Cedar Country Club.” Call & Post. June 8, 1940.
  • “The Cedar Country Club: Ohio’s Swankiest Summer Resort.” Call & Post. June 2, 1938.
  • “Vacation at Cedar Country Club.” Call & Post. July 21, 1938.
  • Vaz, Matthew. Running the Numbers: Race, Police, and the History of Urban Gambling. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
  • “Visitors Find Ohio’s Rural Show Place–The Farm.” Call-Post Photo. Call & Post. July 7, 1938.
Cochran Rd, Solon, OH

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