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The majority of today’s Galvestonians were not there or not old enough at the time to be able to evaluate what effect organized gambling had on the island’s lifestyle and economy before it left for good in 1957.
In the days when Galveston’s vice was operating wide-open, most homes and businesses throughout the U.S. were not air-conditioned. So while tourists came for the beach, they primarily came for the constant gulf breezes that blew through their hotel room windows and weren’t available anywhere else nearby.
In the ’40s and early ’50s, because of World War II, cars were old and unreliable, and tires and batteries and repair parts were scarce. And there were no superhighways until the Eisenhower administration.
A trip from Houston to Galveston took a couple of hours. A trip from Dallas took forever unless you took the train, and many did. Nevertheless, in the main, it was rare for Texas and Louisiana families to venture too far from home.
And since summers were all but unbearable in Houston and Dallas, spending major portions of those hot months in Galveston beachfront hotels with the gulf breeze blowing through the windows, was the common denominator enjoyed by many of the wealthy of those two cities.
The island’s casinos and gaming devices were primarily owned by one family — the Maceos. Sam and Rose Maceo were at the head.
While wags and armchair historians gravitate to talking about three of the Maceo businesses – the Hollywood Dinner Club, the Balinese Room and the Studio Lounge – where guests were dressed to the nines, ate fine food, danced to big bands and gambled away thousands in the hidden casino rooms, those romantic places were not the major source of the Maceo wealth.
They talk about the famous stars who performed at the Hollywood, the Balinese Room and the Studio Lounge as if their numbers were constant and endless. In reality, as hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to count more than fifty who came, and that’s if I really stretched it. That’s only about three each year.
The expected entertainment was being able to ballroom dance, accompanied by noted bands with girl and boy singers.
Instead, the primary sources of the Maceos’ income and wealth accumulation were the slot machines they owned and had placed in most restaurants, bars, newsstands, and tourist traps throughout the island and Galveston County
And also the bingo parlors, tip books, numbers racket and sports betting that hid in the backs of newsstands and under the bar at places like the Spot Tavern, and the Imperial, the Embassy, and the Pirate clubs.
The facts are that the Maceo’s fancy dinner clubs were just shy of being loss leaders, but their true mission was to draw regional and state-wide publicity, and thus, to help build the credibility of Galveston’s tourist industry and cause people to flock there.
And not to forget the bucks of those average Joes from Houston and Dallas and thereabouts who brought their families to the beach, that soon after their arrival would be feeding the slots, pulling tips and betting on the nags.
The Maceo family operated all of their businesses under the umbrella of their Turf Athletic Club.
There were no Turf Athletic Club stockholders living throughout the United States because the Maceos lived on the island, or at least in Galveston County. And they owned the TAC 100%.
In the main, their children went to the island’s schools, and the family’s money was banked and spent there. All but Sam Maceo owned his own home. He and his wife and children lived in a penthouse at the Galvez Hotel.
Expansion of the Maceos’ businesses was limited to their combined personal wealth and credit.
In Texas, gambling was illegal, so there was no license, there was no contract. Every day was a new day.
Should the citizens of the island one day feel it was time for the Maceos to close up, all they had to do was put into motion that their illegal businesses were no longer welcome there, and demand that the laws be enforced.
But why would anyone want to do that? It would mean no more enormous profits to spend in the city, no bank deposits, and no more clothes bought at Nathan’s, Levy’s, Robert I. Cohen’s and Eiband’s by what would then be their out-of-work employees.
And it would mean Brother Harold Fickett’s First Baptist Church, Fr. Dan O’Connell’s St. Mary’s Cathedral, as well as one charity after another, would no longer have the Maceo family to tap when they needed a big contribution for one reason or another.
The wags and the armchair historians seem to purposely overlook that the majority of the ancillary businesses that gambling supported in Galveston was seasonal.
Consequently the major portion of those who were employed by the casinos, the restaurants and the beach amusements were itinerants as were the clientele.
For eight months out of the year, those workers weren’t there to earn paychecks and to spend them in the local stores. The customers those businesses brought during the season weren’t there to contribute to the economy either.
It all happened between the first weekend in May, called “Splash Day” and the first Monday of September, called “Labor Day.”
The reason the concept worked well for Galveston is an irony. The Maceos knew they had to be there, day in and day out, to protect their interests. They had to worry about public opinion. They had to do their best to be considered an asset to the city. And they had to be benevolent, almost to a fault.
But beginning in the ‘50s came the advent of air conditioning in every home, office and store, and the addition of the superhighway system. Maceo profits earned in Galveston began to fall, and whether those who like to tell the stories of Will Wilson and the Texas Rangers want to believe it or not, controlled vices would have soon left Galveston without them.
Local stores had been very profitable, not because gamblers brought them exceptional business, but because it was inconvenient and costly for Galvestonians to drive to downtown Houston to shop.
As soon as the Gulf Freeway and Gulfgate Mall opened in the mid-‘50s, everyday many islanders left by the hundreds to shop in Houston stores.
Frantically, merchants put up “Shop Galveston” billboards everywhere. If that helped at all, it was marginal. The island’s tourist and retail economies were hemorrhaging. The shopping district of downtown breathed its last breath.
While organized gambling in Galveston began when the island was first settled just prior to the Civil War, the Maceo Era – the era most want to hear about and discuss – was only around for thirty years.
It will never be resurrected.
Copyright 2011 – William S. Cherry
BILL CHERRY, REAL ESTATE BROKER
Dallas - Park Cities
Since 1964
214 503-8563
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