How two brothers brought America's best pool players to a small town in southern Illinois.
Johnston City, Illinois, was not the sort of place anyone expected to find at the center of American billiards.
It was a small town in the southern part of the state, far from the big-city poolrooms of Chicago and New York. There were no grand sporting arenas or established professional tours waiting to welcome the nation's best players.
But in October 1961, George and Paulie Jansco opened the doors to a tournament that would bring some of the most colorful and talented players in the country to their corner of Illinois.
For more than a decade, Johnston City became a gathering place for champions, gamblers, road players, and spectators. The tournaments were rough around the edges, ambitious in scale, and unlike anything American pool had quite seen before.
The town was small.
The action was not.
The Brothers Jansco
George and Paulie Jansco had grown up in Johnston City. Their parents ran a small grocery store, and the brothers knew the community long before it became known to pool players across the country.
George had first pursued baseball, playing professionally in the minor leagues before returning home in the 1950s. He eventually bought the J&J Ranch, a roadside bar that became a gathering place for local customers and visiting players.
George was also a pool player. Around 1959, he acquired a nine-foot table and placed it in a small building behind the bar. There was a couch where spectators could sit and watch the action. Road players began stopping by, and conversations around that table helped plant the idea for a tournament.
It was not a grand beginning. One table, a handful of players, and a proprietor who understood that a good match could hold a room's attention for hours.
But George Jansco thought big. He had the promotional instinct to see that the players who came through his door might draw a much larger audience if they were given a reason to stay.
Fourteen Players and One Game
The first Johnston City tournament opened on October 25, 1961. It was a one-pocket event, with fourteen players competing for a reported $5,000 prize fund.
Johnny Vives won the tournament. Jimmy Moore finished second, while other experienced players came to test themselves against the field. The event ran into November, giving the players plenty of time to compete—and plenty of opportunity for the action away from the formal matches.
One-pocket was a natural choice. It was a game respected by road players and serious gamblers because it rewarded patience, defense, and judgment as much as shot-making. A player could run balls beautifully and still lose to someone who understood when to wait, when to move a ball, and when to leave the table in trouble.
The Janscos were not trying to turn pool into something it wasn't. They were bringing a game familiar to the road players into a public tournament setting.
There were rules, a prize fund, and a winner. There was also the knowledge that the best players in the room might continue competing after the official matches ended.
That mixture became part of Johnston City's character.
The Town Gets Bigger
The first tournament attracted attention beyond southern Illinois. Newspaper coverage helped spread the word, and a major article by journalist Tom Fox in Sports Illustrated brought the Johnston City scene to a national audience. The tournament also helped introduce Minnesota Fats, already a colorful character in the pool world, to a much wider public.
The following year, the Janscos expanded the competition. Nine-ball and straight pool joined one-pocket, creating an all-around tournament that tested players across three different games.
That was an important change. A player might be an excellent nine-ball shooter but less comfortable with the strategic demands of one-pocket. Straight pool required another set of skills: pattern play, precise position, and the ability to keep a run alive long after a lesser player might have missed.
The all-around format rewarded versatility. It also gave spectators more reasons to follow the tournament, and it helped make Johnston City a destination rather than a single event.
As attendance grew, the operation moved from George's small poolroom to the larger Show Bar associated with Paulie. The brothers invested in space for players and spectators and continued developing the tournament's reputation.
Johnston City had become more than a stop on the road. For a few weeks each year, it was where the road led.
The Players Who Came
The tournaments brought together an extraordinary range of talent. Minnesota Fats attracted attention with his showmanship, but the fields also included serious competitors whose reputations rested on their ability to win.
Luther “Wimpy” Lassiter became one of Johnston City's defining champions. Eddie Taylor brought his formidable bank-pool game. Ronnie Allen, Jimmy Moore, Hubert Cokes, and other road players added to the strength and variety of the competition.
They did not all play the same way. Some were known for spectacular shot-making; others built their success on defense, patience, or an ability to recognize opportunities that were invisible to most spectators.
That variety made the all-around tournament compelling. It was not enough to master one game. A player had to adjust.
For the spectators, Johnston City offered a rare chance to see leading players compete in the same place, sometimes over extended matches where the smallest mistake could change the result.
For the players, it was an opportunity to test themselves against the best—and to find out who could handle the pressure when the room was watching.
The End of the Run
George Jansco died in 1969, and Paulie continued the tournament tradition. The gatherings carried on into 1972, when the final Johnston City events unfolded amid growing law-enforcement pressure surrounding gambling. Federal agents intervened during the last period of the tournaments, helping bring the era to a close.
The ending was messy, but the achievement remained.
The Jansco brothers had helped bring the road-player world into public view. They had given one-pocket and nine-ball a larger tournament stage and demonstrated that an event rooted in poolroom culture could attract national attention.
Johnston City did not become famous because it had the largest arena or the richest sporting establishment. It became famous because two brothers understood the players and built a place where the best of them wanted to gather.
The tournaments are gone. The town is still there.
And in the history of American pool, Johnston City remains a place where the road came to a stop.
