William Merkle was biorn in Germany around 1866. He came to Camden during the 1900s from Philadelphia, where he had worked as a baker. By 1910 he was the proprietor of a saloon at 601 Point Street in North Camden. By 1918 he had moved, owning and operating a bar at 227 North 9th Street, the corner of North 9th and Lawrence Streets. He ran this bar through at last October of 1931.

William Merkle was arrested for violating Prohibition statutes in October of 1931. He may have closed his bar after this. By 1947, the building, although still standing, was vacant.

This bar is not to be confused with the bar at 225 North 9th Street, the southwest corner of the North 9th and Lawrence intersection, which remained open through the late 1960s. This bar was operated though 1908 by Richard Daly, from 1918 to 1928 by Charles Wedemeyer, in 1936 by Larry Callaghan, from 1940 through 1949 by Herbert V. Deckert, and as early as 1954 through the late 1960s was known as Terry's Cafe. 

NEW DRY AGENTS RAID 2 SOFT DRINK PLACES

Two men fell victims to federal prohibition raiders in simultaneous raids shortly before noon Saturday in Camden county.

While one group of agents under direction of Harry E. Johnson, Camden's new dry czar, was "knocking off" the saloon of William Merkle at Ninth and Lawrence Streets, another detail of agents was seizing nine barrels of beer at the Park Grill Inn, on Route 47, Pennsauken Township.

At the latter place, Joseph Guth, 55, who gave the inn as his address, was taken into custody. Both Merkle and Guth were arraigned before U. S. Commissioner Wynn Armstrong, charged with illegal sale and possession of high power beer and held under $1000 bail for a federal grand jury hearing.