823 E Fort: What’s up with the history of Wiley Gunters?
This bar in Locust Point is named after an infamous cowboy - and the owner is his own great-great-grandson.
But before we get to either of them, let's talk about the building.
The 1890s: Changing hands
Over about half a decade, the address changed hands more than once, and it wasn't always a bar:
1894: Jacob Wagner (a machinist) and Max Wagner (a carver)
1895: John Seymour, a finisher
1898: Joseph Dieter
None of these three show up as "saloon" in the record.
1899–1903: Gesswein's Saloon
By the turn of the century, the address was a saloon under August Gesswein, who ran it from 1899 to 1903.
This is the first confirmed saloon at this address in the record. Everything before it (the Wagners, Seymour, Dieter) was a working building with a working trade attached.
1905: Becker & Brennan
In 1905, two men - Thomas Becker and John Brennan - ran a saloon listed under two street addresses at once: 821 and 823 E Fort Ave. Wiley Gunter's has described its building as "originally two rowhomes, eventually expanded to the size we are today." The Becker and Brennan listing might be proof.
Late 1930s: Byrnes' Cafe
By the late 1930s, the bar on this block was known as Byrnes' Cafe.
And it wasn't just a place to get a drink. A Baltimore liquor board record from the period shows Byrnes's Cafe got hit with a five-day suspension after the board found that the licensee, Albert J. Byrnes, was running a lottery and bookmaking operation right there on the premises.
This tracks with what else we know about the neighborhood at the time. Locust Point during and after World War II had roughly two dozen taverns packed onto one small peninsula - dockworkers walking off the piers, into whichever bar was closest. One old-timer, interviewed decades later, remembered growing up a half-block from the union hall on Hull Street and counting nine bars within a single block of his childhood home. Another remembered a friend getting a rival drunk on double whiskeys at "Byrne's Cafe on Fort Avenue," specifically so a buddy could pick a fight and win it.
The names that get us to today
From here, the chain runs faster:
The Cellblock
Empty Pockets: a local blogger reported in 2012 that you could still see a large painted "Empty Pockets Saloon" mural on the back wall of the building, years after the name had changed.
SkyBox Bar and Grill: opened in 2005 by John Giorgakis, who also ran the Hilltop pizzeria nearby on Fort Avenue
Sly Fox Pub: opened around 2011
2012: Wiley Gunters
Wyatt Mackie was the general manager at Sly Fox Pub. Sometime in 2011 he bought the bar from brothers Andrew and Chris Fox, who still run the original Sly Fox Pub down in Annapolis.
When he reopened in July 2012, he named it after Wiley Gunter.
Here's how they're connected:
Wiley Gunter had a daughter, Maggie.
Maggie had a daughter, Pauline.
Pauline married a preacher - Reverend Kenneth Mackie - and together they had four kids.
One of those kids had a son named Wyatt.
Wyatt Mackie
Wyatt is Wiley’s great-great-grandson. "Gunter" is even Wyatt's middle name.
The story
If you strip away the different names, here's what holds true: this address has been serving drinks on and off since at least 1903. It survived Prohibition-era name changes, a gambling bust, and a world war's worth of dockworkers.
** Researched from Baltimore city directory records (1888–1905), Baltimore liquor board records, a 1994 and 2006 Baltimore Sun feature on Fort Avenue bars, a 2012 Baltimore Sun review, and local Locust Point oral histories. Where a claim couldn't be independently confirmed, I've flagged it above.