Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 126, No. 81, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 2, 2008 Page: 3 of 16
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Rangers end gambling at Galveston's
Balinese Room in '57, Ike tears it down
pniK rniiNTv enterprise
■ «
fTlhe Texas Rangers finally
succeeded in eliminating
X gambling at Galveston’s
famed Balinese Room in 1957,
but it took a Category 2 hurricane
to cashier the old casino-on-a-pier
once and for all.
Coming ashore on Galveston
Island in the predawn hours of
Sept. 13, Hurricane Ike pushed
a towering storm surge that beat
the Balinese Room worse than a
guy betting a full house against a
straight flush. When the sun came
up on Sept. 13 all that remained of
the 79-year-old National Historic
Landmark were the pilings that
once supported a pier that extended
600 feet into the Gulf and a pile of
debris that included the old joint’s
famous red door.
Oh, one other thing survived, at
least in the early days following
the storm - the club’s Web site.
Visiting www.balineseroom.net
less than 24 hours after the club’s
destruction was almost as painful
as listening to a dead friend’s voice
on their not-yet-erased answering
machine message.
Hopefully, the club’s latest
owner has managed to salvage
some artifacts from the ruins and
has deep enough pockets to rebuild
the place. But it won’t be the
actual structure that hosted some
a
the Great Depression.
Indeed, the Sui Jen and other
places owned by the Maceos,
including the Turf Club, helped
Galveston fare better than many
cities as the Emergency dragged
on.
Early in World War II, with
Galveston swarming with soldiers,
airmen and sailors, the Maceos
decided to go with a more tropical
sounding name - the Balinese
Room. They remodeled the place
and lengthened what had been a
200-foot pier by 400 feet. At the
end of the pier, 200 yards out into
the Gulf of Mexico, they built a
sophisticated gaming room.
Of course, 600 feet was still well
inside U.S. territorial waters, but
the Maceos sefcmed to think the
room lay far enough at sea for them
to run a casino just as if it were
legal to do so.
' Galveston had always seen
itself as independent from the
rest of Texas and no one minded
particularly that the club had been
of America’s biggest entertainers, a speak-easy and gambling joint for
from Bob Hope to Chairman of the most of its existence. The Mao
Board Frank Sinatra.
The club’s history goes *back
to 1923 when a small restaurant
not-so-uniquely known as the
Chop Suey opened at 21st Street
and Seawall. Though shut down
for a time for illegal gambling, it
reopened after Sam and Rosario
Maceo - Italian immigrants who
went from barbering to bootlegging
- used some of their illicit income
to purchase it. They called it the
Sui Jen and offered Chinese food
and a night club. Oh, and wide-
open gambling.
By this time, the early 1930s,
many Texans and out-of-state
visitors came to Galveston to brace
themselves with illegal booze and
a, little partying in the face of a
financial crisis first referred to in
the newspapers and magazines as
“the Emergency.” Soon it came to
be called the Depression, and later,
aceos
stimulated the local economy.
When someone asked long-time
Galveston County Sheriff Frank
Biaggne why he didn’t shutter
the Balinese Room, he famously
replied that it was a private club
and he was not a member.
Using the business model later
perfected in a then-small Nevada
town called Las Vegas, the Maceos
brought in the biggest names in
entertainment during the club’s
heyday. The list of men and women
who appeared at the club reads like
an entertainment industry’s Who’s
Who.
Listed alphabetically, some of
those who had gigs at the Balinese
Room included Gene Autry, Jack
Benny, George Burns and Grade
Allen, Duke Ellington, Phil Harris,
Guy Lombardo, Groucho Marx
and Mel Torme.
On orders from Austin, Rangers
occasionally raided the place. That
usually came after some politician
found it expedient to proclaim he
was “Shocked, shocked to find out
tha^ gaming is going on..." in the
Great State of Texas. (Rent a DVD
of “Casablanca” if you’d like to
practice Captain Renault's famous
line.)
Usually, when the men in the big
hats showed up at the red door, the
Balinese’s house band struck up a
rousing version of "The Eyes of
Texas" to alert the staff in the back
that the Rangers had arrived. By the
time the lawmen got to the gaming
room, no evidence of gambling
could be found.
In 1957, newly elected state
Attorney General Will Wilson,
who as a district attorney had
cleaned up gambling and vice in
Dallas, turned his attention to the
so-called Free State of Galveston.
“Shocked, shocked...” he
employed undercover operatives
to penetrate the club and later, after
someone tipped off the Balinese
that the Rangers were planning a
big raid, used civil injunctions to
still the slots and stop the roulette
wheels.
Even so, the process took
longer than most people realize.
Up to the early ’60s, Rangers still
occasionally showed up to make
sure the lid on Galveston gaming
stayed down.
But for all practical purposes,
the party - at least the illegal
version - was over by the spring of
1957. The Maceos had died a few
years earlier and the club closed.
Variously someone would reopen
the place as a shell shop or eatery,
but the magic was long gone.
The old club got roughed up by
Hurricane Carla in 1961 and again
by Alicia in 1983, but the structure
proved as durable as a geriatric slot
machine addict.
Listed on the National Register
of Historic Places in 1997, the
Balinese Room sat empty for a
time before Houston' lawyer Scott
Arnold took a 60-year lease on the
place in 2001. He reopened it as
a live entertainment venue - sans
gambling.
Whether he will rebuild the
Balinese and roll the figurative dice
one more time remains to be seen.
AUSTIN - The Texas Historical
Commission’s (THC) Texas Main
Street Program was honored
Monday by receiving a $218,615
grant from Preserve America to
enable strategic reassessments of
Main Street cities throughout the
state.
The grant will be utilized over the
next two years to conduct site visits
to participating communities to
enhance their existing preservation
ethic that has developed under
the national Main Street model.
Twenty-nine Texas Main Street/
Preserve America communities are
eligible for funding.
Preserve America is a White
House initiative that encourages
and supports community efforts to
preserve and enjoy priceless cultural
and natural heritage
“Preserve America Grants help
communities leam about their
history and share it with visitors.
These grants make the story of
America come alive and create a
better understanding of our diverse
and rich cultures," said John L.
Nau, III, chairman of the Advisory
Council on Historic Preservation.
The reassessment visits will be
condensed versions of the original
resource teams that are provided to
all new Texas Main Street cities.
The assessments will include
direct recommendations and
suggestions for specific historic
resources in local Main Street
districts. The grant will also fund
regional training and education
for the public through a series of
I nformational presentations inTexas
Main Street Program/Preserve
America communities on crucial
preservation topics including
historic building maintenance,
heritage tourism initiatives, tax
incentives and design guidelines.
The ultimate goal of these
objectives is to increase statewide
awareness and understanding of
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Preserve America awards grant to Main Steet
sound preservation practices as
they relate to historic resources and
heritage tourism.
“We appreciate Preserve
America's recognition and support
of our Main Street Program In
Texas," said THC Main Street
Coordinator Debra Farst. "Main
Street communities help bring
Texas history to life, enriching not
only residents but visitors lives
by cultivating and promoting the
Texas mystique that thrives in these
^historic towns.”
The THC’s Texas Main Street
Program is a revitalization
program for historic downtown and
neighborhood commercial districts.
For more information on the
Texas Main Street Program, contact
State Coordinator Debra Farst at
512/463-5758 or debra.farst@thc.
state.tx.us.
To learn more about the Preserve
America program visit www.
preserveamerica.gov,
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Reddell, Valerie. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 126, No. 81, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 2, 2008, newspaper, October 2, 2008; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth820694/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.