History

A Thrilling Lost Chapter of Mob Rule

Western Pennsylvania’s New Kensington was in the grips of Mafia control throughout the 1950s, with a bevy of bookie joints, gambling casinos and brothels. An outgrowth of the Pittsburgh mob, New Kensington’s Costa Nostra ordered a group of Mafiosi to break into a National Guard station in Ohio and steal a shipment of weapons. The guns were destined for Fidel Castro, who was waging guerrilla war in Cuba. The Pittsburgh Mafia was hoping to get on Castro’s good side if he won the war to secure the reopening of gambling casinos. From a daring heist in Canada to Swiss bank accounts and CIA informants, this infamous gunrunning scheme was a high-speed saga of international intrigue. Join author Richard Gazarik as he presents a harrowing historical narrative of the criminal underworld of Western Pennsylvania.

In 1988, Judge Joe O'Kicki was regarded by his peers as one of the most brilliant legal minds in the United States. He was newly re-married, sworn in as the president judge of a Pennsylvania county and on the fast track to a federal bench....

Silently, however, a state police vice unit was in the midst of covert operation into O'Kicki's personal affairs. The judge would be accused of soliciting bribes, frequenting brothels and running the county as if he were a "battleship commander.'? Later he'd concoct a plan to flee the country and exact revenge on his enemies.

Set in the aftermath of the 1977 Johnstown flood and including courtroom testimony, the memos of whistleblowers, contemporary interviews and excerpts from O'Kicki's unfinished tell-all memoir, "Jailing the Johnstown Judge'? is a fresh examination of the extraordinary Western Pennsylvania case that attained international infamy.

During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City.

Looking to escape poverty and persecution at home, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Before any codes of honor were established in the New World, violent bosses wreaked havoc on their communities in their quest to rule the underworld. It took several decades for the Mafia to mature into a contemporary organized crime syndicate. Some names and places from both eras are still infamous today, like Frank Costello and the Copacabana, while some have remained hidden in absolute secrecy until now. Walk in their footsteps as New York City author Eric Ferrara explores the myths and realities of one of America's most feared and fascinating subjects.

Steubenville Ohio, a mecca of murder was nicknamed Little Chicago with gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging running rampant for over one hundred years.

Steubenville's Water Street red-light district drew men from hundreds of miles away, as well as underage runaways. The white slave trade was rampant, and along with all the vice crimes, murders became a weekly occurrence. Law enforcement seemed to turn a blind eye, and cries of political corruption were heard in the state capital. This scenario replayed itself over and over again during the past century as mobsters and madams ruled and murders plagued the city and county at an alarming rate.

Boston journalists Beverly Ford and Stephanie Schorow navigate the backrooms and seedy hangouts throughout the real story of Boston's gangster past.

The capture of notorious mobster James Whitey Bulger closed an infamous chapter in Boston history, yet the city's criminal underworld has a long and bloody rap sheet that stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Ford and Schorow reveal the underbelly of Boston through profiles of ruthless gangsters like Charles King Solomon, the Angiulo brothers, Joseph The Animal Barboza, Stephen The Rifleman Flemmi and many more who carried out deadly hits and lucrative heists.

Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more.

Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

Chicago Heights was long the seat of one of the major street crews of the Chicago Outfit, but its importance has often been overlooked and misunderstood.

The crew's origins predate Prohibition, when Chicago Heights was a developing manufacturing center with a large Italian immigrant population. Its earliest bosses struggled for control until a violent gang war left the crew solidified under the auspices of Al Capone. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the boys from Chicago Heights generated large streams of revenue for the Outfit through its vast gambling enterprises, union infiltration and stolen auto rackets. For the first time, the history of the Chicago Heights street crew is traced from its inception through its last known boss.

Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City.

With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham’s shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was—like the chocolate egg crème—incubated within the confines of its five boroughs.New York City Ganglandoffers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Al “Scarface” Capone, Joe “The Boss” Masseria, “Crazy” Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.

Social scientist and crime writer James A. Buccellato explores Detroit's struggle with gang violence, public corruption and the politics of vice during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.

Though detectives denied it, the Italian mafia was operating in Detroit as early as 1900, and the city was forever changed. Bootleggers controlled the Detroit River and created a national distribution network for illegal booze during Prohibition. Gangsters, cops and even celebrities fell victim to the violence. Some politicians and prominent businessmen like Henry Ford's right-hand man, Harry Bennett, collaborated closely with the mafia, while others, such as popular radio host Gerald Buckley, fought back and lost their lives.

“Ninety percent of [what] was written about me is bullshit”

Isadore Blumenfeld, aka Kid Cann, came to Minnesota as a toddler when his family emigrated from Romania. In Prohibition-era Minneapolis, a city of vast wealth inequality and vicious antisemitism, young Isadore rose from impoverished newsboy to millionaire. Kid Cann’s ruthless determination, growing organized crime network and willingness to commit wanton violence ignited his meteoric ascent. He got away with innumerable crimes over four decades before a series of relatively minor offenses brought him down. Although ravaged by stress and stripped of his social stature, the infamous gangster earned a place in the folklore of Minnesota. Historian Ron de Beaulieu recounts the saga of the state’s most notorious crime boss.

From a hot springs attraction to a central location for gangsters, gambling, moonshine and organized crime, trace the evolution of this "loose buckle in the Bible belt", now a resort and major tourist destination.

In the late 1800s, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a small town with a big attraction: hot thermal water. The federal government took possession of the downtown-area springs, and bathhouse row was born, along with the first property that would be considered a national park. Following not too far behind were great entrepreneurs who brought in gambling and prostitution to go with the area's leading industry: moonshining. By the time the 20th century rolled in, Hot Springs was booming with tourists and became America's first resort. In the early 1930s, former New York gangster Owen Madden took up residence in the spa city, and things became very organized. Gangland luminaries from Al Capone to Frank Costello made regular pilgrimages over the next few decades to what was referred to as "the loose buckle in the Bible Belt."

Join author and Miami native Avi Bash as he exposes the life and activities of Organized Crime in Miami in the 20th century.

While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops. Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law.

Chicago's legacy of organized crime is legendary. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime in the center of the midwest.

No business, legitimate or otherwise, has had a more raucous influence on the history of a city than that of the Outfit in Chicago. From the roots of organized crime in the late 19th century to the present day, The Chicago Outfit examines the evolution of the city's underworld, focusing on their business activities and leadership along with the violence and political protection they employed to become the most successful of the Cosa Nostra crime families. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images, many of which are published here for the first time, author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime from a fresh and informed point of view.

Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s explores a little-known but spirited chapter of the Quaker City's history.

The hoodlums, hucksters, and racketeers of Prohibition-era Philadelphia sold bootleg booze, peddled illicit drugs, ran numbers, and operated prostitution and insurance rings. Among the fascinating personalities that created and contributed to the Philadelphia crime scene of the 1920s and 1930s were empire builders like Mickey Duffy, known as Prohibition's Mr. Big, and Max Boo Boo Hoff, dubbed the King of the Bootleggers; the violent Lanzetti brothers, who ran their own illegal enterprise; mobster Harry Nig Rosen Stromberg, a New York transplant; and the arsenic widows poison ring, which specialized in fraud and murder. Bringing to light rare photographs and forgotten characters, the authors chronicle the underworld of Philadelphia in the interwar era. The upheaval caused by the gangs and groups herein mirrors the frenzied cultural and political shifts of the Roaring Twenties and the austere 1930s.

Learn the story behind one of Detroit's most infamous mobs with rare photographs documenting their rise and fall.

Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit chronicles the storied and hallowed gangland history of the notorious Detroit underworld. Scott M. Burnstein takes the reader inside the belly of the beast, tracking the bloodshed, exploits, and leadership of the southeast Michigan crime syndicate as never before seen in print. Through a stunning array of rare archival photographs and images, Motor City Mafia captures Detroit's most infamous past, from its inception in the early part of the 20th century, through the years when the iconic Purple Gang ruled the city's streets during Prohibition, through the 1930s and the formation of the local Italian mafia, and the Detroit crime family's glory days in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, all the way to the downfall of the area's mob reign in the 1980s and 1990s.

Beginning as a group of delinquents committing petty crimes, they became Detroit's infamous Purple Gang, of one of the most notorious organized crime groups of the 20th century.

The photographs in this fascinating collection chronologically follow the evolution of the Purples from their days as a juvenile street gang through their rise to power and eventual self-destruction. Detroit had a gold rush atmosphere and a thriving black market during the 1920s that attracted gangsters and unsavory characters from all over the country. The gang's reputation for hijacking and terror spread far, and they became associates with Al Capone, their location a perfect midway point to smuggle Canadian whisky across the border and down into Chicago. Their reputation was such that they were even suspected by the FBI for being involved with the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Using rare police department mug shots and group photographs, the book transports readers through the dark side of Prohibition-era Detroit history.

A captivating tale of corruption and crime

In need of cash to finance the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln turned to the nation’s leading counterfeiters, including a band of enterprising criminals based in Monroe, Wisconsin. Operating under the nose of Allan Pinkerton, the Bonelatta Gang worked alongside the Kentucky Colony, who formed Chicago’s corrupt Democratic Machine and nurtured the Levee Lords all the way down to Al Capone. Even Salmon P. Chase helped this ring of Monroe crooks, but this did not stop the Secret Service from throwing them under the bus when Republican scandals became too hot for President Grant to handle.

Historian and Monroe native Andrea Nolen reveals this fascinating and little-known story of an obscure gang in rural Wisconsin that helped birth not only the Chicago mob but also the Ziegfeld Follies and the New Age movement.

Milwaukee is best known for its beer - and rightfully so. But in the days of Prohibition, the big alcohol suppliers were not Miller, Blatz, Schlitz, and Pabst.

The Mafia had control, and it made its money by running alcohol as far away as Canada and Indiana, as well as with counterfeiting, the numbers racket, and two of the biggest heists in American history. From then on, the sky was the limit, as the Mafia indulged in extortion, protection rackets, and skimming from Las Vegas casinos. The Cream City had its crooked lawyers, corrupt cops, and even a mayor on the take. There was the blood of those who dared to stand in the syndicate's way, who were found dead in ditches or as victims of car bombs. The members of the Mafia included doctors, real estate men, restaurateurs, tavern owners, funeral directors, union presidents, and the most famous Milwaukee gangster of all, Frank Balistrieri. While now considered extinct, the Milwaukee Family was once a dominant force in the Midwest.

Some say it was the biggest theft in American history. Maybe it was.

The multimillion-dollar burglary at eccentric gambler LaVere Redfield’s Reno mansion was an endless comedy of errors. A target who hides from cameras and gets embarrassed for his dog. A failed songwriter “mastermind” who can’t keep her mouth shut. A safecracker who can’t pick a lock. And a convicted killer who allows his ill-gotten gains to be stolen while his pants are down. In almost every way, the 1952 Reno Heist is a study in how not to commit a crime, which is likely why the case lives on in infamy.

Historian Gavin Schmitt unfolds the notorious misadventures of bumbling crooks, shady casino owners and femme fatales.

Nicknamed "Liquor Island," Long Island was rumrunner's paradise during Prohibition.

With its proximity to major markets and coastal communities for easy transit, Suffolk County was awash in illegal hooch. Smugglers bringing cases of booze from offshore often secretly hid product temporarily in local garages and sheds, leaving a bottle as a thank-you. Coded communication crisscrossed the county on shortwave radios arranging sales and logistics. Violence from criminal outfits disrupted previously quiet towns, as locals too often were swept up in dangerous unintentional engagements with bootleggers.

Pour one out and join author Amy Kasuga Folk as she recounts stories from Suffolk County's Prohibition era

Beaches & Bootlegging: The true stories of Prohibition Era Florida

Prohibition is recognized as one of the most unpopular laws in US history. It was so unpopular at the time that some Floridians weren’t all too keen on obeying it. Learn how it was instigated by small town Protestants who believed that newer immigrants living in big cities were immoral because of their emphatic use of alcohol. Prohibition bred corruption, defiance of the law, and hypocrisy as illegal bootlegging, moonshining and rum running replaced legitimate taxpaying industries. Florida actually voted state-wide Prohibition into law before the dreaded 18th amendment and was the only state to elect a governor from the Prohibition Party. Florida’s Bill McCoy “The Real McCoy” founded Rum Row and became an international celebrity as he made a mockery of the U.S. Coast Guard’s inability to squelch his innovative rum running operations. Al Capone, the infamous gangster, vacationed in Florida while his henchmen perpetrated the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Many virtually unknown stories of tragic killings in Florida during Prohibition are also recounted as author Randy Jaye guides readers through Florida’s Prohibition Era.

Prohibition Glenview made many people rich, some angry, some sad, and some dead.

Today, Glenview is one of the safest places to live in Illinois, but during Prohibition, speakeasies, saloons, and "ice cream parlors" hijacked the small farming town. Good men and women, trying make a few bucks, opened scores of taprooms and lounges along Waukegan Road. Beloved institutions like Hackney's restaurants, Meier's Tavern, and Grandpa's Place were originally supplied by a bootlegging operation that was both local and friendly. Then the Chicago Outfit moved in. Author Jill Crane traces the path the resilient citizens of Glenview took in carving a thriving community out of the tumult of Prohibition.

Bootlegging, bombs, murder, and more... all for the price of a drink. This is the history of Prohibition in Pittsburgh.

When you work hard, you play hard, and Pittsburgh is a hardworking city. So, when Prohibition hit the Steel City, it created a level of violence and corruption residents had never witnessed. Illegal producers ran stills in kitchens, basements, bathroom tubs, warehouses and even abandoned distilleries. War between gangs of bootleggers resulted in a number of murders and bombings that placed Pittsburgh on the same level as New York City and Chicago in criminal activity. John Bazzano ordered the killing of the Volpe brothers but did so without the permission of Mafia bosses; his battered body was later found on the street in Brooklyn. Author Richard Gazarik details the shady side of the Steel City during a tumultuous era.

From 1917 to 1919, terror struck the streets of Akron. As soldiers marched off to World War I and Spanish influenza ravaged the community, police officers faced a sinister threat.

Murderous kingpin Rosario Borgia placed a bounty on officers' heads for interfering with his criminal enterprises. Gangsters gunned down seven cops, killing five, in a series of brazen attacks over fifteen months. Author Mark J. Price chronicles the crimes, victims, gangsters and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Explore the fasciniating history of Prohibition in one of the places where it was most defied-- Baltimore, Maryland.

There was perhaps no region more opposed to Prohibition than Baltimore and Maryland. The Free State was defiant in its protest from thoroughly wet Governor Albert Ritchie to esteemed Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons. Maryland was the only state to not pass a baby Volstead enforcement act. Speakeasies emerged at Frostburg's Gunter Hotel and at Baltimore's famed Belvedere Hotel, whose famous owls' blinking eyes would notify its patrons if it was safe to indulge in bootleg liquor. Rumrunners were frequent on the Chesapeake Bay as bootleggers populated the city streets. Journalist H.L. Mencken, known as the Sage of Baltimore, drew national attention criticizing the new law. Author Michael T. Walsh presents this colorful history.

Author William L. Tabac describes the extraordinary legal proceeding with the twists and turns of a modern television drama and the fall of a prominent attorney.

Tommy Osborn's star was rising. The young Nashville lawyer led a band of Tennessee reformers to victory in a landmark Supreme Court case. Hailed by Chief Justice Earl Warren as the most important of his career, Baker v. Carr's one man, one vote mandate revolutionized how Americans chose their representatives. Osborn was hired by Jimmy Hoffa to take on Bobby Kennedy for the fourth time. Unfortunately, the young lawyer met his match in Walter Sheridan, Kennedy's top aide and brilliant spymaster.

Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city.

Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world turned to Ohio, particularly when the local Black Hand outfit known as the Society of the Banana went on trial. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unfold this first and nearly forgotten chapter on crime syndicate history.

Daring raids, sporadic gun fights, and midnight chases filled the headlines in 1920s Delaware.

Prohibition attempted to kill John Barleycorn, the personification of intoxicating drinks, but in Delaware the notice of his death was premature. Government agents tried in vain to stop bootleggers and rumrunners who fed the speakeasies that quenched the thirst of the people of the First State. Against the backdrop of the Roaring '20s, bootleggers sped up and down the new Du Pont Boulevard while enforcement agents, such as the bible-thumping Three Gun Wilson, tried in vain to stop them. The stock market crash and the Great Depression ended dry laws and brought about Barleycorn's resurrection.

Local author and historian Michael Morgan recounts dramatic tales of rumrunners, bootleggers, dry laws and wet politicians.

The Darker Side of Hampton County   

Founded as a “white county” during the violence and political turmoil of Reconstruction, Hampton County’s roots are steeped in wickedness and blood. From the “Wild East” days of gunfights, train robbers, rustlers and rough-and-tumble timber towns to the shadowy era of moonshining and infamous solicitor “Buster” Murdaugh’s involvement in the “Great Whisky Conspiracy,” the county is rich with true tales of murder, crime and corruption. Meet colorful characters such as the banker who befriended a notorious bank robber and courageous heroes like the jailer’s teen daughter who saved an accused Black prisoner from death at the hands of a vigilante lynch mob. Travel this historical journey with award-winning storyteller, journalist and local author Michael M. DeWitt Jr.