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Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 2:20 PM
When Prohibition ended, Joes bootlegging career was dealt a
temporary setback. Since he already knew quite a bit about the liquor
and beer business, Joe decided to open a saloon. After purchasing a
small parcel of land outside town by what is now Highway 181, Joe built
a tavern which he named the Sociable Inn. In the back were two
bedrooms and up front there was a bar, a player piano and a room with
tables where men would drink and occasionally enjoy cockfights. While
most customers seemed to get along with Joe, he was known around town
as a creepy guy, someone you did not want to cross.  Joe Balls bar in Elmendorf
Even though the business seemed to do well, Joe felt he needed a
gimmick to draw in customers and soon settled on the idea of having
live alligators on the property. He had a hole dug behind the bar,
which he then cemented and filled with water. He erected a
10-foot-tall fence, filling the pool with five live alligators (one
large and four small). Joes idea panned out and hordes of customers
came to look at his new pets. Saturdays were especially busy, for Joe
would put on a show by taking a live raccoon, cat, dog or any other
animal he could get his hands on, and throw the animal to the
alligators to the delight of his customers. According to Elton Cude
Jr., whose father, a Bexar County deputy sheriff, helped investigate
Ball and later wrote about him in a book titled The Wild and Free Dukedom of Bexar,
it was common knowledge that every Saturday night, a drunken orgy
occurred any wild animal, possum, cat, dog, or any other animal without
an owner helped make the show a little better. Get drunk, throw an
animal in and watch the alligators, wrote Cude in his book. A similar
account can also be found within the files at the San Antonio Public
Library: The squawling [sic] kitten flopped into the pool. A big
alligator lifted its jaws, closed like a vice, and the screaming cat
was bitten in half. 'There's more to come, my pets!' Big Joe Ball
shouted, as the drink-crazed crowd roared in appreciation. And he next
tossed a puppy into the bloody pool!
 Alligator feeding on a small mammal
In
addition to his alligators, Joes male customers enjoyed the fact that
he would only hire the youngest and prettiest girls to waitress and
tend bar. None of the girls ever seemed to stay for long, but Joe
always explained that the girls were simply drifting through town
looking for a quick buck.
 Minnie Gotthardt, known as Big Minnie
In
1934, Joe met a woman from Seguin named Minnie Gotthardt, or Big Minnie
as most knew her. Joes friends disliked her and considered her an
officious and loathsome person, but Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire apparently didnt mind and the
two eventually began running the bar together. The relationship lasted
for almost three years, until Joe fell for Dolores "Buddy" Goodwin, one
of his younger waitresses. Dolores fell in love with Joe, even though
he had once thrown a bottle at her, which left a nasty scar from her
eye to her neck. Things became even more complicated in 1937, when
22-year-old Hazel Schatzie Brown began working at the bar. Full of
self-confidence and perilously beautiful, Joe, forever the player, fell
in love once again. This created the problem for Joe of trying to
balance three women, all of whom worked at his bar.
 Hazel "Schatzie Brown", victim
During the summer of 1937, part of Joes problem was solved with the
disappearance of Minnie. Upon inquiry by friends and relatives of
Minnies, he eagerly explained that she had left town after giving birth
to a black baby. A few months later, Joe married Dolores and later
revealed to her that Minnie had not run off, but rather that he had
taken her to a local beach, shot her in the head, and buried her in the
sand. Dolores did not seem to believe Joes story and the subject was
never brought up again. In January 1938, Dolores was involved in a
near fatal car accident, which resulted in the amputation of her left
arm. Nonetheless, rumors quickly began flying around that one of Joes
alligators had actually torn it off. Regardless of how she lost her
arm, Dolores mysteriously disappeared in April and, not long after, so
did Hazel.
 Group of alligators (Craig S. Thom)
While the women in Joes life were anything but consistent, his
alligators were always there for him. Joe was very protective of his
beloved gators. It had been rumored that on one occasion, when a
neighbor complained about the smell of rotting meat, Joe pulled out a
gun, and in a not so polite manner explained that it must have been the
alligators food that smelled and that the nosy neighbor should mind his
own business if he did not want to become that food. The neighbor then
reportedly moved to another city.
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