April 19, 1955. Almost every squad car in Hillsborough County, Florida lined Columbus Drive in Ybor City. A crowd of men, women and children stood anxiously in the yard of the only mansion of Ybor City, waiting to hear if the rumors of another gang slaying that had spread throughout the city were true. While gang slayings had become the norm in Tampa, the latest being the 21st in the last 23 years, this one was different. This murder was especially brutal. The victim’s head was caved in with a bat and his neck was sliced from ear to ear. Most importantly, though, was the identity of the victim. He was not just any Mafioso or gang member, the victim was one of the most colorful and notorious men in the history of Tampa, the man known as the “White Shadow”–Charlie Wall–the tall, Anglo, retired crime lord who ruled Tampa through both love and fear for most of the early part of the 20th century.

In 1887-1888, Tampa experienced the worst  of yellow fever, a grim epidemic that struck Tampa repeatedly from the city’s charter in 1850 to 1905 when the last case was reported.  Dr. John Perry Wall, a Tampa physician who lost both his wife and daughter to the disease, focused on its probable causes in an effort to save Tampa’s citizens and eradicate yellow fever.