Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

'30s serial killer buried victim at Ingleside

   QUESTIONS & ANSWERS - as we lope toward the New Year, with the Year of the Hanging Chad all but over, and time to clean out our e-mail files.
   Q. When I was a small boy in the '30s, I heard a story about several murders in the Ingleside area. The story was that during the Depression there was a roadhouse near Ingleside and the owner hired young women who were traveling through the area to work for him. When it came time to pay them, the owner killed them and buried them in the sand hills. Is this true? I heard it from more than one person.
   Tom Harper.
   A. I think you're thinking of the Joe Ball story. Ball, a bootlegger, owned a beer joint, Joe's Place, in Elmendorf near San Antonio. He had an alligator tank at the place. Ball shot and killed a pretty waitress named Minnie Gerhardt and buried her body in the sand near Ingleside. This was in 1938.
   He killed another waitress, named Hazel Brown, with an ax, dismembered the corpse and stuffed it in a barrel and kept it in a back room at the bar. After customers began to complain about the odor, he took the body parts and buried them on the banks of the Salado River.
   When these were found, and police showed up to question Ball, he pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the heart. A handyman at the place, who was tried as an accessory, testified that Ball had killed another waitress and fed her to his alligators. A school teacher who was infatuated with Ball disappeared. Her clothes were found at the bar and it was surmised that she, too, had been fed to the alligators. A number of women customers and waitresses at Joe's Place all disappeared, but how many were killed by Joe Ball was never confirmed. Only one of Ball's victims was buried in a sand dune near Ingleside. That was Minnie Gerhardt, shot in the head. This information comes from a story in the Caller, dated Feb. 20, 1958.
   Q. Wonderful column on the camel corps. I found a 1930 New York Times book review about the experiment. Can you tell me where you found the master's thesis? Is it in any public archive?
   Reeva Hunter,
   Burbank, Calif.
   A. Yes. The master's thesis by Leo F. Mahoney on Jefferson Davis' camel experiment is in the Library of the University of Texas at Austin. I quoted from an article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly by Lewis B. Lesley.
   K. Matthew Gilley,
   Stillwater, Okla.
   Q. I read your columns about the Mercer family on Mustang Island. Very interesting. Are copies of those logs available? I would enjoy reading them.
   A. The Mercer diaries about life on Mustang Island in the late 1800s have never been published in book form; they should be. As far as I know, the only place they can be read is in the Corpus Christi Central Library, in the local history room. Some are transcribed and some are on microfilm. Some day, they will be put together and published in a book.
   Q. I was reading your columns on the caller.com web site. I was surprised to find you had mentioned Heath's Wharf. I believe that Heath to be Cheston C. Heath, my great-great grandfather. He sailed to Corpus Christi from Maine sometime around 1860-1870. He became mayor of Corpus Christi. His son, Cheston L. Heath, was president of the school board. Do you have any other information?
   Dave Heath,
   Dallas.
   A. Yes, a little. Capt. C.C. Heath was the mayor of Corpus Christi in 1886 and 1887. He and his wife were charter members when the First Baptist Church was organized on Aug. 18, 1878. In 1885, Capt. Heath was listed as one of the top merchants in the city; his grocery store, Heath & Son, had an assessed value of $10,450. The store was located in Market Square, at Mesquite and Schatzel.
   Q. We read your history on-line in New Orleans and enjoy it very much. Can you tell me something about the history of Six Points?
   Bill Dowden,
   New Orleans.
   A. Six Points was a country crossroads in 1925 when real estate agent E. B. Cole (for whom Cole Park is named) sold 200 acres of land for the city's first southside development - Del Mar. As Del Mar grew, Six Points - at the intersection of Alameda, Staples and Ayers - grew. It really began to take off in the late 1930s.
   In 1937, Pat Limerick built a grocery store near the Ayers-Staples corner. Friends teased him for locating out where there were more coyotes than customers. But within two years a 16-lane bowling alley was built and then came Biel's Grocery, the Kleberg Station of the Post Office, and several large office buildings. The Tower Theater followed in the 1950s. This is not a complete summary, but it hits a few high points.
   Q. Someone sent me a copy of your column "Up the trail from Texas." I read this with interest as I am writing a book on the movement of livestock from the frontier to Ohio from 1805-1860. You state that one of the drives came to Ohio in the 1840s. This is of great importance, especially since most of our livestock were sent to Baltimore during that time frame. Perhaps a cattle-buyer here bought these Texas cattle and then moved them on east. Do you know more?
   Floyd Simpson,
   Belmont, Ohio.
   A. Many accounts have been written about the first cattle drives made from South Texas to Louisiana during the Spanish era. Later, drives were made to Natchez, Miss., and west to California during the Gold Rush era. In the 1850s, cattle were driven to Missouri, and herds also went to Illinois and Ohio. This was cited by James Bell in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in an article titled "A Log of the Texas-California Cattle Trail." But I don't know any specifics about drives that were made to Ohio.
   Q. For more years than I can remember, I've been told that the house on the S-curve of Ocean Drive was a castle brought over, stone by stone, from Europe, England I think. I have repeated this to my children. My son told his teacher the story, and she doubts it. Is this story true? I believe the house belongs to Mike McKinnon.
   Jerry Hunt.
   A. That's an interesting house. Manasel Donigan, who built the State Hotel in Corpus Christi in 1907, had the castle-like mansion built as a replica, from his memory, of a home he grew up in on the Bosporus in Istanbul, Turkey. He lived in the house with wealthy friends after the deaths of his parents.
   When he was 17, Manasel Donigan came to the United States and eventually drifted to Texas. In time he built and operated the State Hotel at Mesquite and Starr. The State was the city's first modern hotel; it even had private bathrooms. A reception was held in the hotel for President William Howard Taft when he visited Corpus Christi in 1909.
   After V. M. (Manasel) Donigan died, his sons Mesog and Arnot ran the hotel. Mesog and his sister Lucy Welch lived in the palatial home on Ocean Drive. It was sold to Mike McKinnon, former state senator and owner of KIII-TV, for an undisclosed price, estimated at the time to be from $750,000 to $1 million. The photo above shows the house when it was bought by McKinnon in 1979.
   But no story I have read about the Donigan place mentions that any stones were imported from foreign parts. Still, it's an exotic building.
   By the way, I heard the same story that rocks were imported from England to build Ada Wilson's turret tower.
   When the late Ada Wilson, oil duchess and great benefactress of crippled children, lived at the house (3745 Ocean Drive), the tower was used to house her collection of rare antiques. The tower was inspired by a trip she took to England. It was built in 1972. Oh, it was constructed of stone quarried somewhere in Texas, probably in the Hill Country. This house is a little on the exotic side itself.
  

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