Agreed, TonyG, the Maceos ran a model operation and did so with honor. While Chicago leaned on New Orleans, Galveston somehow flew below the radar (in spite of the fact that Galveston was equally viable, even more viable during Prohibition because of its geography as a long and relatively undeveloped barrier island.) Illegal gaming was a gentleman's agreement with the Maceos... Jakie Freedman, who would later found the Sands in Las Vegas, had the Domain Privee only an hour away in Harris County. When "Colonel" W.L. Moody, self-proclaimed emperor of Galveston, who'd made his fortune in hotel monopolies, threw his weight with the Maceos, Sam responded coolly. He counseled Moody to stay out of Maceo business and the Maceos would stay out of hotels. Moody knew the only reason he hadn't already been ruined was because the Maceos had chosen to let him be. The only tax? Moody had to let them be in return. In a thirty-year span, the only aspect of Galveston the Maceos couldn't persuade was an over-zealous, Elliot Ness wannabe named Jim Simpson. After crushing Maceo Syndicate in the late '50s, Simpson, a long-time Texas City attorney, lived long enough to see Galveston erode into the ghetto shit-hole it became in the '60s, '70s and '80s. The crack peddled by the moulinyans on the island, and the crank cooked and peddled by the biker trash on the mainland (all of Galveston County was run by the Maceos) would never have stood under Sam and Rose. Only with gentrification beginning in the mid-'90s has Galveston slowly begun to return to her Maceo-era glory.

But like Las Vegas, she will never be the same.

The most comprehensive telling of the Maceo empire is in Gary Cartwright's book, Galveston: A History of the Island