- Nov
- 07
They play home of tommy gun inventor
This Tuesday They Might be Giants played at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentuky. That’s a picture of it. It’s a rock club now.
Here’s some history: Richard Southgate built the Southgate House about 1814 to replace the log or frame dwelling his family had inhabited for the past two decades. This comfortable beamed two-story home was built according to Southgate family tradition by British prisoners of the War of 1812 confined in Newport. When originally built, the Southgate House occupied a full city block.
Brig. Gen. John Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson Machine Gun was born here on December 31, 1860. Thompson invented several semi-automatic rifles, but it was in 1920 when he developed the submachine gun that was named after him.
The “Tommy Gun” was first used by U.S. Marines in Nicaragua in 1925. With modification, the weapon was used by the United States and her allies in World War II. The General Thompson’s “Tommy Gun” became an American legend due to its connection with the Mafia underworld in the 1920s. It was known as the “Chicago piano” and the “typewriter.” It is believed to be one of the weapons used in the gangland St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago.
