10 Places in Austin the Mob Used to Control

On December 3, 1976, three masked men walked into a salvage yard on the edge of Austin and robbed the owner at gunpoint. The owner fought back with a shotgun. It was a bloody fiasco — and it was ordered by the city's top bail bondsman: Frank Hughey Smith, a Waco preacher's son turned ex-convict millionaire, the man the University of Texas Press would call a Dixie Mafia figure. For a hundred years, Austin ran its underworld in the open. Guy Town, the red-light district built around the old courthouse. Hattie Valdez, the madam in the pink Cadillac who ran South Congress for four decades. Ernie's Chicken Shack, the East 11th gambling den where Timmy Overton's gang planned bank burglaries. The transmission shop on East First Street that doubled as a safecracking school. And Ronnie Earle, the young district attorney who brought the whole empire down. These are the 10 places in Austin the mob used to control. Real places. Real history. Real money. #TexasMob #AustinHistory #TexasHistory