Gangsters in Tampa

When I think about the speakeasy culture of the 1920s my mind conjures images of Chicago and outfits like Al Capone's or the infamous O'Banion's Northside gang. The movies brought images of beer barrels chopped open with axes, late-night runs across the Great Lakes to smuggle booze from Canada, and of course baseball bats and Tommy guns. In Chicago alone, there were more than 25,000 men and boys who belonged to one of the gangs. 

Moving to Florida over a decade ago and starting to explore the history of this state introduced me to a new group of 1920s gangsters. Here Charlie Wall's mob clashed with Italian mobster Ignacio Antinori. With the plethora of inlets around Tampa Bay rumrunners were unstoppable. But the real power of the Tampa outfits was Bolita, a type of lottery that was popular in Cuba and among Florida’s working-class minorities. Charley Wall, the black sheep of his blueblooded family,  got into the game early and pretty much cornered the racket. At the height of his power, nothing of importance got done in central Florida without his nod. Gambling, car theft, human trafficking,  prostitution, rumrunning, bootlegging, speakeasies, and music halls were sources of his wealth. That wealth bought him elections, courts, police departments, and city halls. 

What wealth could not buy was protection from a racket bigger than all the others combined. During prohibition, no self-respecting gangster would engage in the dope trade. But, drugs flowed through Tampa's port. Self-respect was of little import to the men whose lust for money fueled the drug trade. Crime syndicates formed and crime was big business. Individuals like Wall were squeezed out by networks spread around the world. After a Decade of Blood, the Trafficante family took over Tampa.