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Part I
Amidst the bright subtropical skies and warm waters that define the place we call home, namely Tampa, there was, and to a degree still is, an undercurrent of darkness that has ruled, terrified, financially ruined, and even killed a large number of its citizenry. That force of darkness is known quite simply as organized crime and Tampa has historically had more than its fair share of it.

When most people think of where organized crime has flourished, they often think of cities such as Chicago, New York, or Las Vegas. But one of the biggest organized crime cities in the country was, and by some people's estimations still is, right here in good ole Tam-pah!

Booze, Bolita and Bootleggin'
Although organized crime has in many ways been with us as long as there have been people, in Tampa it began to flourish with the advent of the Eighteenth Amendment, or "Prohibition" on January 1, 1919. Put simply, "Prohibition", or "the Noble Experiment" as it was nicknamed, was an outright ban on the sale of any alcoholic beverage. This was a nationwide ban devised by Washington D.C. lawmakers that would drive alcohol sales from legitimate liquor dealers into the hands and wallets of moonshiners, bootleggers, and organized crime (affectionately nicknamed "the Mob" by many).

	"THE REVENOOERS" win a round in the battle against moonshiners during the Prohibition era. Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies pose triumphantly at the county jail with distillery equipment seized in a raid on an illicit still in Riverview.

The Moonshiners
Moonshiners were typically rural folk who would set up makeshift distilleries, or "stills" in secluded wooded areas in order to produce liquor, which they nicknamed "moonshine" or "white lightening". There were some moonshiners in the poorer parts of Tampa, but the majority of them lived out in agricultural and forested areas. The grade of their "shine" varied considerably depending on the skill of the moonshiner and the available products that went in to its making. At its worst, badly made moonshine could blind, sicken, or even kill in quick order. It was truly a crapshoot to what the unsuspecting buyer might get when it came to "shine", but the public had such a strong craving for the substance that any sacrifice on their part was worth making. Moonshine stills were a common commodity in the wooded areas of Hernando Counties, so common in fact that virtually every household had a still somewhere on its property. Hillsborough County also had its fair share in the eastern and southern portions of the county. Prohibition would last for another 16 years, and during that time Tampa ended up being one of the "wettest" spots in the United States due to corrupt law enforcement and publicly elected officials, most of whom were loyal to the growing tide of organized crime.

The Bootleggers
During Prohibition the most common way that Tampa folk got liquor was through moonshiners, international smugglers, or bootleggers. Moonshiners are mentioned above. Their market was primarily those people living in rural areas. Also, city folk found it inconvenient to depend on the moonshiners as travel was involved and the moonshiners did not tend to frequent the cities peddling their goods. As a result, alcohol was more often provided in the urban areas by bootleggers. In Tampa the majority of bootleggers during this era were Italian. This was due to their strong negative reaction of having their drinking habits regulated. Like their rural brethren, the Italians also built stills and employed perhaps as much as 50 percent of Ybor City's families. As Prohibition lingered on, many of the still operators and their support staff became wealthy, raising the socio-economic status of the Italian-American community, but also bringing it into Tampa's criminal underworld-an underworld that was up until that time the near exclusive domain of city's Cubans and Spaniards.

Bolita
The most lucrative form of vice during the Prohibition era in Tampa was "Bolita". This Cuban numbers game was brought to Tampa in the 1880s and flourished in Latin saloons. It became the largest illegal money making enterprise in Tampa's history. Bolita works like this-Bolita is a lottery where 100 Ivory balls with black numbers are exhibited on a large table. After a brief inspection, all 100 balls are placed into a velvet sack, which is tightly sealed. The bag is then thrown from person to person all taking a ball from the sack. Lastly a "catcher" who held one ball in his clenched fist grabbed the bag. Once done, the operator tied a string around the imprisoned ball. he then cut the bag above the string and allowed the winning number to drop in his hand.

Charlie Wall-the Bolita czar
By the 1920s the Bolita trade was virtually monopolized by an Anglo named Charlie Wall was the undisputed king of the Bolita empire in Tampa and controlled it for nearly three decades. Wall had a fascinating history. He was the son of an ex-Confederate Army surgeon who directed the Richmond hospital during the Civil War. He was related to some of Florida's most powerful families, such as the Lykes and the McKays. Wall's mother died when he was thirteen, and when Wall was fifteen, his father unexpectedly died at a medical convention in Gainesville, Florida. Wall was then raised by his stepmother whom he hated and eventually shot and wounded with a .22 calibre pistol.

After a trip to the juvenile home, Wall was sent to the Bingham Military School in North Carolina where he was quickly expelled for being caught in a house of prostitution. He then returned to Tam-pah, and became both fascinated and involved with Tampa's growing gambling industry. He went from courier to bookie and then to overlord of the City's Bolita rackets, which until that time were run out of Cuba. It is alleged that Wall was encouraged and even financed by Tampa's business community to take over the Bolita trade so that the gambling revenues did not leave the city, empowering the businesses to spawn more industries and commercial ventures.

In large part, Wall maintained his "Bolita" lordship by controlling the city's "hot" voting precincts. When he couldn't buy off the necessary votes to have his hand picked stewards win elections; he simply stuffed the ballot boxes. It is also alleged that during his three-decade reign as the gambling lord, there was not one single honest election in Tampa and Hillsborough County. Wall also retained his lordship through elimination of his potential opponents. At least six competitors met violent deaths while trying to take the vice crown from this king of crime. But Wall's three decade long reign over the Bolita trade was increasingly challenged by Italian gangsters as their prominence and power rose through fortunes made in the bootlegging trade. Many of them wanted to expand their newly acquired empires by destroying the Wall-Cuban Bolita monopoly--even if it meant using violent means. That would be quick in coming as on June 9, 1930, assailants in a speeding car ambushed Wall in front of his garage door. Wall was not seriously injured, but this incident marked the beginning of a violent blood feud between Old Guard mobsters and upstart Italian gangsters.

Many thanks to Florida Folk Hero and NCPCR writer extraordinaire Terence Nuzum for furnishing me with this fascinating slice of "La Floridiana" vice.

Next week, more moonshiners, rum runners and smugglers in "Mob Rule--Tampa's Organized Crime Communities of the 1920s-Part II"