North Side Gang

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The North Side Gang, also known as the North Side Mob, was the dominant Irish-American criminal organization (although a large number of Polish and German-Americans were members as well) within Chicago during the Prohibition from the early to late 1920s and principal rival of the Johnny Torrio-Al Capone organization, later known as the Chicago Outfit.

Contents

[edit] Impact of the North Side Gang

[edit] History of the North Side Gang

[edit] Early history


[edit] Prohibition

Originally based on the North Clark Street restaurant McGovern's Saloon and Cafe, the Northsiders, upon taking control of the breweries and distilleries in operation following the passage of the Volstead Act (thus ensuring a near monopoly on supplying real beer and high quality whiskey compared to the rotgut liquor and moonshine of rival competitors), would soon control the working class neighborhoods of the 42nd and 43rd Wards within months of Prohibition (although they continued committing burglary of local stores and warehouses and running illegal gambling operations). Strengthening his political protection through election fraud as well as a publicity campaign with large scale donations to orphanages and charities as well as giving out food and loans to the poor and unemployed in the neighborhoods of Chicago's North Side.

As Sicilian and other Italian-American gangs arose in Chicago's Southside, such as the Gennas and later arrival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, O'Bannion's steadfast resistance to sell portions of North Side distilleries (as well as pre-existing hostility between Irish and Italian-Americans) would cause tensions to rise between the two groups. During several meetings arranged by Torrio, O'Bannion would often provoke the Italians weither by direct insults or through hijacking beer shipments and selling it back to the owners. However, the North Side Gang would also have trouble with other ethnic gangs, including a 1921 incident in which O'Bannion shot Ragen's Colts member Davy "Yiddles" Miller after insulting a North Side member at a local opera.

Although O'Bannion and Weiss were arrested and charged with burglary in 1922, the North Side Gang enjoyed considerable police protection from the Chicago police department despite a later investigation by Chicago reform Mayor William E. Dever following the attendance of several high ranking police officials including Chief Detective Michael Hughes and Lieutenant Charles Evans (as well as County Clerk Robert Sweitzer and Public Works commissioner Colonel Albert A. Sprague with a large number of Democrat and Republican politicians) at a banquet hosted in honor of O'Bannion, later dubbed by the press as the "Balshazzar Feast". Chicago police would also assist the North Side Gang, most notably in the 1924 robbery of the Sibly Distillery, then under federal guard since the beginning of Prohibition, when O'Bannion gunmen looted the distillery in broad daylight carrying away 1,750 bonded whiskey worth around $1 million and were escorted by Police Lieutenant Michael Grady and four detective sergeants (although later indicted, charges against Grady and the other police officers were quickly dismissed).

Although agreeing in early 1924 to an uneasy alliance with Torrio and Capone, largely brokered by Mike Merlo, relations between the two organizations quickly began to dissolve following O'Bannion's demands to collect a $30,000 gambling debt from "Bloody" Angelo Genna (who, with members of his gang, were allowed to be exempted from payment) from losses at the co-owned gambling casino The Ship.

Although Torrio persuaded Genna to pay his gambling debt, O'Bannion further provoked Torrio after arranging a police raid on one of his own breweries when he attempted to sell Torrio the valuable Sieben Brewery on May 19. It was after Torrio's release, after demands from the Gennas, that he agreed the gang leader be killed.

On November 10, shortly after the death of Merlo, O'Bannion was killed when three unidentified men entered his flower shop and shot him several times. This was to be the beginning of a five year gang war between the North Side Gang against Johnny Torrio's Chicago Outfit that would end only with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929.

[edit] War with the Chicago Outfit

After the death of Dion O'Banion, Hymie Weiss assumed leadership of the gang and on January 12, 1925, Weiss, with Bugs Moran and Vincent Drucci, attempted to kill Al Capone at a Chicago South Side restaurant, firing at Capone's car and injuring chauffeur Sylvester Barton although Capone was unharmed.

On January 24, shortly after the assassination attempt on Capone, Weiss, again with Moran, Drucci, and Frank Gusenberg ambushed Torrio as he returned from shopping with his wife. Shooting him several times, Torrio was wounded along with his chauffeur Robert Barton. As George Moran was about to kill the wounded Torrio, the gun misfired and the gang members were forced to flee the scene as the police arrived. Although surviving the attack, Torrio quickly decided to retire to Italy and gave leadership of Torrio's organization to his lieutenant Al Capone.

[edit] The Northsiders under Weiss, Drucci and Moran

[edit] St. Valentine's Day Massacre

On February 14, 1929 four unidentified men, dressed as Chicago police officers, stormed into a North Side Street garage and ordered seven members of the North Side Gang against a wall where they were gunned down. The only member to survive, Peter Gusenburg, died hours later at a nearby Chicago hospital refusing to name his attackers. Known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the attack effectively ends the five year gang war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran.

[edit] Aftermath

Although Moran had survived the attempt on his life, as had Torrio only years before, much of the gangs veteran gunmen were killed in the attack. The North Side Gang still held control over the 42nd and 43rd Wards, and although an attempt would be made to hold their territory against rivals such as Frank McErlane in 1930, the power of the North Side Gang slowly declined during the early 1930's. It was later suspected Moran was part of the gunmen who killed Jack McGurn, organizer of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in 1936. However, Moran was powerless to stop the National Crime Syndicates takeover of the North Side's gambling operations, the organizations only remaining source of income following the end of Prohibition, and by the end of the decade Moran had left the Chicago underworld leaving the North Side territory to be absorbed into the Chicago Outfit.

[edit] Bosses of the North Side Gang

[edit] Members

A later member of the Northsiders, Christian "Barney" Bersche ran prostitution and gambling dens in Chicago's North Side. Following the syndicate takeover of his operations by Capone after the truce agreement at the Hotel Sherman conference in 1926, Bertshe allied with Moran in the hopes of regaining control over his criminal operations.
  • James Clark (d. 1929)
Born Albert Kachellek, Clark was a bodyguard and brother-in-law of George Moran. One of the seven victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Also known under the alias Frank Meyer, Heyer was a North Side Mob accountant and business manager. One of the seven victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
  • John May (d. 1929)
Northside mechanic and driver. One of the seven victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Labor racketeer and a lieutenant under George Moran and, as a bodyguard, was present with Moran at the time of the St. valentine's Day Massacre.
Longtime Chicago rumrunner and lieutenant under George Moran during the final years of Prohibition. Defected to the Chicago Outfit following the St. Vanentine's Day Massacre. He is later killed under orders by Capone successor Frank Nitti for his involvement in conspiring to murder Nitti, his body is found in a roadside ditch in Indiana on January 7, 1933.
  • Billy Skidmore
  • Albert "Gorilla Al" Weinshank (d. 1929)
  • Jake Zuta

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • O'Kane, James M. Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity and the American Dream. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0-7658-0994-X

[edit] References

  • Enright, Laura L. Chicago's Most Wanted: The Top Ten Book of Murderous Mobsters, Midway Monsters, and Windy City Oddities. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books Inc., 2005. ISBN 1-57488-785-8
  • Zorbaugh, Harvey Warren. The Gold Coast and the Slum: Sociological Study of Chicago's Near North Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929. ISBN 0-226-98945-3

[edit] External links

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