Wabasha Caves

## New Castle Royal Club

* **Location:** Wabasha Street near the downtown riverfront in St. Paul

This is a Mafia club and it’s not shy about showing it. After stints as silica mines and later, mushroom farms, during Prohibition, the sandstone caves here were home to the 'Castle Royal' club, the fanciest speakeasy on the Mississippi, a favorite of the crooks and killers who took advantage of the O'Conner System, including such names as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly and others. Since the Awakening there’s been a club here catering to those with a taste for that 1920s flavor. Funny how history repeats itself.

The Mob bought it for cheap pretty shortly after the Awakening. Even before, the place had the reputation of being somewhat haunted; apparitions of old mobsters (such as the three killed by Dillinger's right hand guy Homer Van Meter in 1934). Those hauntings got a lot more overt once the magic came back in force, and people started getting jumpy. In a time when rebels’ nature spirits were knocking Army choppers out of the sky, even friendly poltergeists looked mighty suspicious. One of the first uses the Mob put their Hmong shamans to, after clearing the city of any real opposition, was to placate the spirits here and reassure people that this was a supernaturally safe place. To this day, a shaman’s on duty all the time, at least when the club’s open. Can we get a magician in here for to comment on the ghosts?

*Sure thing, Rose. They’re mostly apparitions, with a couple with real minor manifestation forms, and like Rose said, they were present even before the Awakening, although far less regularly. Usually they appear as the old-time gangsters themselves; coming from a shamanic tradition, I want to say they are the old gangsters frequenting their old haunts, but a hermetic would definitely tell you different. Part of the reason the club’s décor stays so anachronistic and the dress code is so strictly enforced is to keep them at ease. It seems like they mostly focus on enjoying themselves the way they did in life; they’re probably one of the few sets of ghosts I’ve met that’s less dangerous than when they were alive. As long as the shaman’s watching, they’re actually encouraged to mingle with the crowd; they may not know what year it is, or that they’re dead, but they can be pretty good conversationalists otherwise and they sure add to the ambiance.*
- Phim Kooj Koi

The club plays the speakeasy angle to the hilt; the music’s old jazz and swing or modern approximations of it, the AR setup is minimalist, and the bartenders use all the old slang; they’re not using personafixes, they’re actually that well trained. The Mob makes money hand over fist from private gambling rooms here, as well as a variety of party drugs. This is a really safe place for them to do business. It doesn’t hurt that even the ones that aren’t mobsters are dressing and talking like they are. If you’re going to go clubbing in the Cities, this is the local experience I’d most recommend. Just watch your words; even here, don’t talk about Mob business too openly. This should be obvious, but I’m just saying.

*Interesting aside: most Hmong women are real hesitant to enter caves, because the dab that live there can make you infertile. This makes it kind of a boys’ club for a lot of the Vang mobsters; they gotta bring their non-Hmong girl on the side to the club, leave the wife at home, which suits a lot of them just fine.*
- Iab Npauj

*Might be worth it for some of those “dapper” boys , eh, vivncaus?*
- Hyasynth

*Oh, you two.*
- Wired Rose

*If someone ever tells you that you can’t smell history, bring them to the Caves to prove them wrong. I’ve come home from there more than once smelling like Lucky Strikes, a brand of smokes that hasn’t been sold in decades.*

- Ginebig

   Return to: Minneapolis Hotspots