March 6, 1947: The Onyx Club opens at 109 S. Fair Oaks in Pasadena.

The former site of what was variously called the Onyx Club, Onyx Cafe or Onyx Bar on South Fair Oaks in Pasadena, via Google Street View.

June 1950: Vivienne Miles-El is charged with fatally stabbing her boyfriend Clinton E. “Smiling Jack” Jackson, a well-known gambling figure along Central Avenue.

The Sentinel said: “Jackson, who at the time of his death was married and living at 617 1/2 E. Santa Barbara [now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard] but who intimates say was ‘running around’ with the willowy Miss Miles-El, was allegedly stabbed to death by the woman in the Onyx Bar, 109 Fair Oaks Avenue, Pasadena, following what witnesses say was a quarrel.”

The quarrel began when Jackson said he didn’t want Miles-El driving other people around in his Cadillac. Jackson slapped Miles-El “many times” a witness testified at the inquest.

Miles-El told friends to “forget” the slapping, the Sentinel said. But 10 minutes later, Miles-El plunged a paring knife into his chest “as she sat facing him on a bar stool,” the Sentinel said.

A cabdriver took Jackson to a hospital and then to Huntington Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Miles-El was found not guilty.