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Rack 'em.

Before television and urban sprawl, billiard halls were hip recreation joints that buzzed with excitement — and gambling.

Peter Pan Billiards was just such a place in the bustle of downtown Salt Lake City in 1930s, '40s and '50s. But like other pool rooms across the country, Peter Pan began to wane by the late 1960s as many city residents migrated to the suburbs and other forms of entertainment became more popular.

The billiard room in the basement at 222 Main Street opened in 1928 as Gene Enos Inc. Billiards, according to records at the Utah Historical Society. It became Peter Pan Billiards in 1938, but you could still hear the crack of the cue ball until 1984, when its owner, Preston Young, closed the place.

At one time, the 222 Main Street address also housed the Peter Pan Barbershop and the Peter Pan Cafe at street level.

In 1968, when antique dealer Clark Phelps was 18, he worked across Main Street from the Peter Pan at Baker's Shoes and was often drawn into the pool hall by its allure.

"It was frightening. Very adult. Just the kind of place for a kid like me," he recalled. "I remember when I got up enough guts, I ordered a bottle of beer."

The billiard parlor was home to 20 Brunswick Medalist tables. The place had a counter with stools and served food as well as beer.

Filmmaker Trent Harris remembers having lunch there as a starving college student in the mid-1970s, when he would order Morrison meat pies smothered in chili. The price: 50 cents.

In the early days, there were elevated seats along the walls where spectators could peer through cigarette smoke as hustlers worked their magic. Back then, people paid by the hour to play billiards — not by the game, as was later the custom.

Not least, there was a card room in the back, where steely eyed gamblers chomping on cigars played.

Some remember descending the stairs to the pool room under a huge mounted marlin and into something that could have been 1930s Brooklyn, New York. The walls were adorned with black and white photos of boxers, football players and other athletes of the day.

In the late '70s, City Weekly publisher John Saltas frequented the Peter Pan as a young man because, among other things, "there was nothing like it in Salt Lake City.

"It was a room full of characters, hustlers and card sharps," Saltas remembered. "It was by no means family oriented. You walked down into another world."

"Den of iniquity" is how some old-timers, including rare book purveyor Ken Sanders, remember it from their youthful days.

"It was one of our watering holes in the late '60s and early '70s," Sanders said. "People were playing pool and drinking beer in the middle of the day. It was exotic for a boy who grew up in Salt Lake City."

But by 1984, downtown was ailing and the seedy-looking Peter Pan room was on the skids.

Lee Simon of Buffalo Billiards in Petaluma, Calif., purchased everything in the hall in 1985, including a photo of boxing champ Jack Dempsy, who once lived in Salt Lake City.

Simon sold some of the vintage elephant-leg tables to Mark Griffin, who transported them to his billiard hall in Anchorage, Alaska, where they remain today.

During the 1930s and '40s, many of the country's top players shot billiards on those tables at the Peter Pan, Simon explained. They came through Salt Lake City on Brunswick's "Billiard Betterment Tour" and locals would crowd the room to watch the very best shoot some stick.

"It was just a fantastic place," Simon said. "But its time had passed."

Editor's note • In this regular series, The Tribune explores the once-favorite places of Utahns, from restaurants to recreation to retail. If you have a spot you'd like us to explore, email whateverhappenedto@sltrib.com with your ideas.