“Rumour spreadin’ a-’round in that Texas town

’bout that shack outside La Grange

And you know what I’m talkin’ about.

Just let me know if you wanna go

To that home out on the range.

They gotta lotta nice girls … ” — From the song “La Grange” by ZZ Top (Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard)

The album, “Tres Hombres” was a huge breakthrough album for ZZ Top after it’s release in July 1973.

    It jumped into the top 10 in the album charts and it’s only single release “La Grange,” barley missed Billboard’s Top 40 list, peaking at #41.

    Album rock radio stations blared “Waitin’ For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago,” “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers,” and “La Grange” all from that album.

    “La Grange” refers to La Grange, Texas, the little town that the Chicken Ranch brothel was near. The song is about that little establishment with the long history, and the song hit just as a major controversy was swirling around it — leading to a television news report, a couple of Playboy magazine articles, a Broadway musical, and a feature film musical — “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.”

    Some of the real-life major players the main characters in the musical are based on include: Edna Milton, the woman who owned the Chicken Ranch who inspired the character Miss Mona Stangely in the musical; The Fayette County Sheriff, T.J. Flournoy who inspired the character Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd; and Marvin Zindler, television reporter for KTRK, the ABC affiliate in Houston, Texas, who inspired the character of TV watchdog reporter Melvin P. Thorpe.

    After the Chicken Ranch closed Edna Milton served as hostess of the Chicken Ranch restaurant. A few years later she wound up on Broadway as a consultant to “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas,” and playing one of the townspeople, Wulla Jean, on stage. It was a non-speaking role. The character was based on the woman Edna had worked for at the Chicken Ranch, known as Miss Jessie. Edna bought the establishment after Miss Jessie’s death in 1961 and carried on many of the traditions that were in place, including discounts for the Texas Aggies football players. I don’t know where Edna Milton is now, or if she is still with us.

    Sheriff T.J. Flournoy had been Sheriff of Fayette County, Texas for 27 years when the Chicken Ranch controversy broke. He had been Chief Deputy there for 13 years prior to that. In 1974 when Marvin Zindler went to do a followup on the closing of the brothel to show there was no economic fallout suffered in the community, he was allegedly assaulted by Flournoy. Zindler said the Sheriff broke two of his ribs and ripped his wig off his head. He also ripped film out of the camera that was shooting the incident but the audio remains. Zindler sued the Sheriff. They settled out of court. Flournoy continued to serve as sheriff until 1980 when he resigned from office. He died in 1982, the year the film “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas” was released.

    Marvin Zindler was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who worked in radio, then newspapers and television. He said he was fired from his first experience with TV because he was too ugly.

    That’s when the plastic surgeries began and apparently became a habit (he had 14 of them throughout his life — including four facelifts).

    For about 12 years he worked as a deputy in the Harris County Sheriff’s Department and developed the Consumer Fraud Division there. But, he’d upset so many business people with deep pockets through his law enforcement work that they went in together to support a new candidate for sheriff, who won. Zindler was fired immediately.

    That’s when Zindler landed the gig he would have for the rest of his life at television station KTRK.

    Marvin Zindler told his television viewing audience that an anonymous tip had come his way about houses of prostitution being allowed to operate in the towns of Sealy and La Grange. The Chicken Ranch, in fact, had been in operation for more than 100 years. He sent reporters there to check it out, the pressure grew all the way to the governor’s office, and the whorehouses were shut down by local law enforcement.

    In 1998 Zindler admitted he told a fib when he reported that he had gotten an anonymous tip about the whorehouses. It was Texas Attorney General John Hill who leaked investigative reports to Zindler because it wasn’t only the sheriff who allowed the prostitution to continue, it also was the district attorney down there.

    Hill later became Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and in the 1990s then Gov. George W. Bush appointed him to oversee the Texas lottery after some questionable things came to light with that.

    Known as “the white knight in blue shades,” Zindler was married for 56 years and had five children by that marriage. He remarried late in life after his first wife passed away. He organized Marvin’s Angels, plastic surgeons who provided free surgeries for children with birth defects. He signed off of KTRK in July 2007 announcing he had a serious illness, telling viewers: “I don’t want anybody to feel sorry for me because I’m almost 86 years old.” He died later that month.

    It wasn’t the prostitution Zindler was upset about. It was the alleged payoffs to elected officials who kept them open. His obituary in the Houston Chronicle included this quote: “I didn’t care that they had a whorehouse,” he’d say in later years. “We had plenty here in Houston.”

    The story has everything — It’s about the South, it’s about sex, it’s about football, crooked elected officials, and the evil, flamboyant media — how could it not be a great musical?

    Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.