William Lloyd Adams “Little Willie” (1914-2011), a Baltimore business man, who is also sometimes described as a sportsman, both for his proficiency at golf and interest in boxing, but also because he ran a numbers operation.  Born in King’s Mountain, North Carolina in 1914, Adams moved to Baltimore in 1929.  Within a year, he had become a numbers runner in the African American community on the east side of Baltimore.  After being a runner for two years, he expanded his operations so that he managed other runners, thus enabling him to receive a higher cut of the numbers profits.  In 1935, a mutual friend introduced Adams to Victorine Quille (1912-2006) who was a Baltimore elementary school teacher.  Adams believed that good education would help lift African Americans from poverty and he admired Quille’s career choice.  They were married in 1935, and moved to “Sugar Hill,” the nickname given to the lower part of the Penn North Neighborhood along Druid Hill Avenue, which was attracting young up and coming African Americans such as the Adamses.  Adams bought the rowhouse on the southwest corner of the intersection of Druid Hill Avenue and Whitelock Street just across the street from the Sugar Hill Tavern.  Adams opened “Little Willie’s Tavern” in the basement of the building, which had been converted from a single family dwelling to apartments on each floor.  Although a 1938 explosion damaged the building, it was repaired and remained standing.  Adams continued to run Little Willie’s Tavern as he expanded his business operations on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Adams chose to establish his real estate office in a three-story building on the east side of the 1500 block of Pennsylvania Avenue at 1519.  Pennsylvania Avenue had been established as the commercial district hub for the west side African American community since 1917, although middle class professional African Americans began moving into the surrounding residential neighborhoods in the late nineteenth century.  Most buildings on the Avenue followed the typical first floor commercial with second and third story residential model that was common in Baltimore.  Adams created his office in the second floor of 1519 Pennsylvania Avenue, and made Club Casino on the first floor of 1517, with guest suites for the bands who played at the tavern on the second floor. 

In 1939, Willie Adams, a member of the Monumental Golf Club, brought his friend, Joe Louis, the champion boxer, to Carroll Park to play a round of golf. A local sports reporter, Roger H. Pippen of the Baltimore News-Post, accompanied them and remarked that the sand greens at Carroll Park were unlike the other golf courses in the city. This was news to Adams and other members of the Monumental Golf Club, who had assumed that all of Baltimore’s municipal courses had sand greens rather than traditional grass. Adams helped pay for the ensuing lawsuit to get improved facilities.