This article in Wood County History published in 2011 sheds some more light on the history of saloons in Mineola (
link):
The early years
The building of the trans-national railroad from the east to the west coast brought transients to each area where work was taking place. There were cutters, railroad workers and the peddlers that followed them. The anticipated arrival of the Texas & Pacific and the Houston & Great Northern railroads created a temporary settlement called Hell's Half Acre or Sodom, as it was known by local residents.
Mineola was founded in 1873 at the actual junction of the two railroads mentioned above. It had grown from a frontier community to an established stop for three railroads. The Houston & Great Northern Line became the International & Great Northern in 1873 and ran south to Houston. The Texas and Pacific Railway Company built their lines east and west and in 1881, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad ran north to Sherman.
Mineola became the junction for the railroad lines because the early residents of the Quitman area did not want the rail lines to run through there.
As the new railroads were being built in East Texas, hundreds of migrant workers were needed. Several towns and communities were established in the early 1870s. Some, such as Mineola, became permanent. Others just faded away. Hell's Half Acre, so-called due to the roughness of the characters that inhabited the shanty town, was one of these. Citizens with some Biblical literacy would refer to the town as "Sodom."
Around the area, there were many rough characters. According to an article in the Mineola Daily Argus on February 11, 1903, "The town was frequented by so many of those barbarous characters known as desperadoes. These so-called desperadoes were heavily armed, drank bad liquors, and carried blood in their eyes." The town however, actually existed for only six months.
In fact, from the early 1870s until 1903, Mineola had at least 14 different saloons and at one particular time, there were eight saloons. Ellie Reeves, an early resident, said, "A man named Schwartz came to Mineola and opened its first saloon."
Through the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, the establishments in town included Blasingame's, Little Abe's, Sam A. Joseph and Bro. Pickard's. J.H. Cofield and the Exchange Saloon, Dave Kitchens, J.J. Patterson, J.M. Audrey, Wren Bros., C.C. Mansell, Breck's Saloon, Johnson Street Saloon, the Palace Saloon, James Bryan's and the Horseshoe Saloon.
Advertisements in the local newspapers touted their finest whiskeys, coldest beer, fine brandies and cigars, billiards and wine.
During this period, William Jesse "Bill" McDonald was a deputy sheriff and George C. Reeves was city marshal.
Bill McDonald was later named as a captain in the Texas Rangers by Governor Hogg. Today there is a street in Mineola named for him. Additionally, Bill McDonald owned what was called "an opera house" on the corner of South Johnson and Commerce Streets in Mineola. An opera house in that period did not present classical opera. Entertainers performed concerts and various programs for their audiences.
Problems for the city due to the saloons
In the timber area adjacent to Mineola, there was some 300 tie-cutters encamped. They supplied cross-ties for the I&GN Railroad. These men were a drinking and lawless lot. On Saturday nights, the Mineola streets were filled with riot and disorder. The city marshal, George Reeves and Deputy Sheriff McDonald had, on several occasions, made arrests. Such enforcement of the law was regarded by the tie gang as an affront to them. They sent word to the officers that they would be on hand in full force on the following Saturday and that the calaboose (jail) might as well go out of commission as far as they were concerned.
One news writer wrote that the saloons were full and the men were getting constantly more noisy and quarrelsome. Finally McDonald and Reeves rounded up the drunken men and took them to the jail. They used a boxcar on a nearby rail line as an annex for the jail.
The jail mentioned here was located on the corner of East Broad Street and North Johnson Street where today there is a Chevron Station. Also at this location is a state historical marker for Captain William Jesse McDonald.