Murder on the Mullet Express
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Charles McKay “Charlie” Wall (March 10, 1880 – April 18, 1955) also known as “The Dean of the Underworld,” “The White Shadow,” and “The Unofficial Mayor of Tampa”.
It is impossible to write about prohibition around Tampa Bay without mentioning Charlie Wall. Charlie’s father was a Tampa civic leader and prominent physician, but obligations left little time for family life. Charlie lost his beloved mother at a young age. His father soon remarried, but less than a year into the marriage he died, leaving Charlie in the hands of a stepmother he detested. At the age of twelve Charlie shot her with a .22 caliber rifle, an act that landed him in military school.
At the age of thirteen, he was kicked out of school for visiting a brothel. Going home to his stepmother was out of the question. Instead, Charlie made own his way in the rough and tumble shanty town of Fort Brooke, a former military base infamous for gambling, drugs, and bawdy houses. Charlie was smart, ambitious, unafraid, naturally gifted in mathematics, and had a head for business. The scrappy kid earned the attention of the grownups in Tampa’s illegal establishments, and from them he learned the ins and outs of the rackets. He also brought to the table his knowledge of Tampa politics and elite society. He looked and dressed the part of an up and coming businessman.
Charlie used his newfound gambling skills to amass wealth and rise to the top of Tampa’s criminal underworld. He used his name and political connections to stay there. His power was so far-reaching, that he was often referred to as the unofficial mayor of Tampa. Nobody got elected in the Bay Area without his approval. By the 1920’s, Charlie Wall was at the pinnacle of success. “The Dean of the Underworld” used his unique combination of organizational skills and political connections to virtually monopolize the bolita racket. Gambling in general was under Charlie’s thumb, as were prostitution and bootlegging. His El Dorado Casino was a gilded example of his power, combining all three rackets under one roof. Charlie was boss of every racket around Tampa Bay and throughout central Florida, except for drugs. Early in his climb to power, he made a deal with the Cubans to leave that racket to them.
Sources for More Information:
The Way It Was: Race Relations and Integration in Citrus County, Florida by Dennis Shawn Allen. Florida State University Digital Library, 2013.
History of Florida: Past and Present, Historical and Biographical, Volume 2 by Harry Gardner Cutler. Lewis Publishing Company, 1923.
Cigar City Mafia - A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld, written by Scott M. Deitche. Barricade Books, 2004. ASIN 8004449516.
Images of America: Citrus County by Lynn M. Homan, Thomas Reilly. Arcadia Publishing, 2001. ISBN 0-7385-0679-6.
Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life by Tammy Stone-Gordon. Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. ISBN 9780759119352.
Hallock, Charles. The Fishing Tourist. Forest and Stream Quarterly, Fall 1891
“Homosassa is Greatest Development on West Coast” by Bennett Roach, St. Petersburg Times, 2/18/1926
Homosassa: “Museum Proprietor Prizes Cabin,” Citrus County Chronicle, 6/26/2011
Sarasota Herald-Tribune advertisement, 01/17/1926.
“Homosassa: A City in the Building.” Chamber of Commerce, Homosassa, Florida, 1926. University of Florida Digital Collections.
Homosassa Civic Club. Florida Humanities Council Brochure - Historic Homosassa
http://www.homosassahistory.com/
http://cigarcitymagazine.com/charlie-wall-tampas-organized-crime-kingpin/
http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Charlie_Wall
http://americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_19.html
http://epmonthly.com/blog/whiskey-prescriptions-and-the-prohibition-act/
http://www.greenhousebistromarket.com/history/
About the Authors
Hair and Photo by Jay Martello
Gwen Mayo is passionate about blending her loves of history and mystery fiction. She currently lives and writes in Safety Harbor, Florida, but grew up in a large Irish family in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. She is the author of the Nessa Donnelly Mysteries and co-author of the Three Snowbirds stories with Sarah Glenn.
Her stories have appeared in A Whodunit Halloween, Decades of Dirt, Halloween Frights (Volume I), and several flash fiction collections. She belongs to Sisters in Crime, SinC Guppies, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, the Historical Novel Society, the Independent Book Publishers Association and the Florida Authors and Publishers Association.
Gwen has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Kentucky. Her most interesting job, though, was as a brakeman and railroad engineer from 1983 - 1987. She was one of the last engineers to be certified on steam locomotives.
Sarah E. Glenn has a B.S. in Journalism, which is a great degree for the dilettante she is. Later on, she did a stint as a graduate student in classical languages. She didn’t get the degree, but she’s great with crosswords. Her most interesting job was working the reports desk for the police department in Lexington, Kentucky, where she learned that criminals really are dumb.
Her great-great aunt served as a nurse in WWI, and was injured by poison gas during the fighting. A hundred years later, this would inspire Sarah to write stories Aunt Dess would probably not approve of.
Her short stories appear in State of Horror: Louisiana, Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology, and many other story collections. She belongs to Sisters in Crime, SinC Guppies, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and the Historical Novel Society. She lives in Safety Harbor, Florida.