The Maceos: Rebuilding Galveston in the Age of Organized Crime

In the 1920s, Galveston was widely considered by its inhabitants to exist outside the laws of mainland Texas. It was a Gulf kingdom unto itself, and quite separated from the rest of the United States. The locals called themselves the Free State of Galveston., and at times even referred to themselves a separate republic. The republic, however, looked much like a pyramid. At the very top sat the Maceos, an Italian-American family that dominated the island with tourism, gambling, booze, and vice. Big brother Rosario Maceo–often simply called Rose or even Papa Rose–immigrated to Louisiana to be a barber. When he came to Galveston, he cut hair at a shop in Murdoch’s Pier, a location that still exists over the water today. His little brother Salvatore–known affectionately by the locals as Big Sam–worked at the Galvez Hotel. Both men would eventually embrace a new career that reflected their experience with organized crime in Sicily.

Rosario and his kid brother Sam first moved to the sleepy town around ten years after the city has been devastated by the greatest storm the United States has ever seen. The hurricane of 1900 ruined Galveston’s prospects as the primary port of the Lone Star State, and instead shifted the majority of incoming commerce to nearby Houston. Buildings across the island had been flattened, leaving a city of wave-washed rubble. Galveston would try to win back some of its previous vigor with new industrial endeavors, including tourism, but there was very little traction in that regard as it attempted to rebuild. Galveston would never recover its antebellum prestige or its strategic importance to the United States, but it is still a popular destination for tourists in Texas today. Salvatore Maceo was the visionary of the pair, but Rose Maceo forced the vision into reality. That money was made through the import of vice into the county.

The Enforcer Rosario would loom large over Galveston’s history until his death in the late March, 1954. His rise to power in the Galveston criminal world began in 1921, just a few years after . One of Rose Maceo’s regular customers, a German immigrant by the name of Dutch Voight, who was in a bit of tight spot after federal agents had been made aware of a shipment of 1,500 bottles of liquor. He wanted Maceo to store the illicit drink at his basement, and he was willing to pay him $1 per bottle stored. Rose and his brother had previously given out illegal wine to their best customers in hollowed out loaves of bread, but this was different. The elder Maceo brother knew that this “favor” for a gangster was an opportunity to move on from cutting hair.

When it came time for Voight to pay him what was owed, Maceo refused the money and asked for it to be invested into the operations of Voight’s organization, the Beach Gang. The beach gang was one of two that attempted to bring booze and vice into the island. Their rivals, the Downtown Gang, would eventually be driven out after Rosario got involved. Maceo had earned a reputation as a trustworthy man while cutting hair on the seawall.

He also asked for himself and his brother to become involved in the next operation, as well. The Maceo Empire began in that moment, and its success in bring both booze and people to Galveston would forever alter the city’s primary function. Where Galveston had been a bustling port before the devastating Hurricane of 1900, now it would be a premier tourist definition on America’s third coast.

Based on experiences gained with organized crime in both Sicily and New Orleans, Rose Maceo would eventually take over leadership of the Beach Gang. Through patience, theft of rival booze shipments, and actual gun battles onthe streets of Galveston, the Beach Gang reigned supreme and pushed out their rivals. The gang, however, was still led by Dutch Voight. The pathway to power over the organization–and thus the island–was paved with real estate purchases and the smoky haze of speakeasies.

Organized crime brought in tremendous ammounts of revenue because they effectively controlled the market. Gangs like those in Galveston were the only place in town to get booze, and the public was willing to pay high prices to secure it. In Galveston, even law enforcement was more than willing to turn a blind eye to the Maceos and their speakeasies as long as it did not turn violent. On two different occasions when it did turn violent, Galveston juries allowed Rose Macio to walk.

The Macios began their liquor operations with a humble soda shop that served as a front to their bootlegging, but eventually graduated to a new place called the “Chop Suey Café” that opened in 1922. The café served alcohol and offered gambling behind closed doors, and led them to create the Hollywood DInner Club in 1926. They offered alcohol and gambling openly, and law enforcement in the city turned a blind eye as it also brought in revenue and record numbers of tourists. Galveston’s brief success in the roaring twenties continued, linked with the Maceo’s abilities to walk the knife’s edge that was organized crime in prohibition Texas.


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