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Joe Bergl
Joseph P. Bergl (1901 – September 1950) was a mechanic who supplied specially designed vehicles for Chicago's underworld, including Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, Depression-era outlaw George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and members of the Barker Gang. Operating from his garage, Bergl Auto Sales, on 22nd Street, next to Ralph "Bottles" Capone's Cotton Club, Bergl supplied Capone's organization with custom-made cars for both protection and evasion purposes. This included armor-plated vehicles with bulletproof windows, the ability to create oil slicks and smokescreens, and other devices designed to elude police pursuit. Members of the Barker Gang used such a car when they robbed Federal Reserve Bank messengers at Jackson Boulevard on September 22, 1933. After a patrolman was killed, the gang fled the scene with a load of canceled checks and eventually were forced to abandon their car after crashing it. Upon finding the wrecked car, police traced the vehicle to Bergl's shop and arrested G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33. Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager and became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties, he moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard and trusted factotum for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, that originated in the city's South Side in the early 1910s. It is part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. He shared power with Tony Accardo from 1943 until his death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Gun Kelly (gangster)
George Kelly Barnes (July 17, 1900 – July 18, 1954), better known by his pseudonym "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster from Memphis, Tennessee, active during the Prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun. He is best known for the kidnapping of oil tycoon and businessman Charles F. Urschel in July 1933, from which he and his gang collected a $200,000 ransom. Urschel had collected and left considerable evidence that assisted the subsequent FBI investigation, which eventually led to Kelly's arrest in Memphis on September 26, 1933. His crimes also included bootlegging and armed robbery. Early life Kelly's first sign of trouble came when he enrolled in Mississippi State University to study agriculture in 1917. From the beginning, Kelly was considered a poor student with his highest grade (a C plus) awarded for good physical hygiene. He was constantly in trouble with the faculty and spent much of his academic career attempting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barker Gang
Kate Barker (born Arizona Donnie Clark; October 8, 1873 – January 16, 1935), better known as Ma Barker (and sometimes known as Arizona Barker and Arrie Barker), was the mother of several American criminals who ran the Barker–Karpis Gang during the "public enemy era" when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the Midwestern United States gripped the American people and press. She traveled with her sons during their criminal careers. Barker gained a reputation as a ruthless crime matriarch who controlled and organized her sons' crimes. J. Edgar Hoover described her as "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade." She has been presented as a monstrous mother in films, songs, and literature. However, those who knew her insisted that she had no criminal role and also allege that Hoover created such accusations in order to excuse the FBI for her subsequent death in a shootout in 1935. Current reports as of 2022 are consistent that Kate Barke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
22nd Street (Chicago)
Cermak Road, also known as 22nd Street, is a 19-mile, major east–west street on Chicago's near south and west sides and the city's western suburbs. In Chicago's street numbering system, Cermak is 2200 south, or twenty-two blocks south of the baseline of Madison Street. Normally, one mile comprises eight Chicago blocks, but the arterial streets Roosevelt Road, formerly named Twelfth Street and at 1200 South, and Cermak Road (Twenty-Second Street) were platted before the eight-blocks-per-mile plan was implemented. Roosevelt Road is one mile south of Madison Avenue and there are twelve blocks within that mile. Cermak Road is two miles south of Madison Avenue and there are ten blocks within the mile between Roosevelt and Cermak Roads. The street was named after Democratic politician Anton Cermak, Mayor of Chicago from 1931 until 1933. Cermak was shot and killed on February 15, 1933, by an assassin who was aiming for President Franklin Roosevelt. Cermak was a Czech immigrant credi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Capone
Ralph James Capone (; born Raffaele James Capone, ; January 12, 1894 – November 22, 1974) was an Italian-American Chicago mobster and an older brother of Al Capone and Frank Capone. He got the nickname "Bottles" not from involvement in the Capone bootlegging empire, but from his running the legitimate non-alcoholic beverage and bottling operations in Chicago. Further family lore suggests that the nickname was specifically tied to his lobbying the Illinois Legislature to put into law that milk bottling companies had to stamp the date that the milk was bottled on the bottle. He was most famous for being named by the Chicago Crime Commission " Public Enemy Number Three" when his brother Al was "Public Enemy Number One". Early life Capone was born in 1894, in Angri, a small town in Campania, Italy, near Mount Vesuvius, and he was the middle son of Gabriele and Teresa (née Raiola) Capone. He had eight siblings, Vicenzo, Frank, Al, Ermina, John, Matthew Capone and Mafalda Maritot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton Club
The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940).Elizabeth Winter"Cotton Club of Harlem (1923- )" Black Past (retrieved September 9, 2014). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall,Iain Cameron Williams, Chapter 15, ''Underneath A Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall'', Continuum, 2002. Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery Choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gus Winkler
Gus Winkler (March 28, 1901 – October 9, 1933) was an American gangster who headed a Prohibition-era criminal gang specializing in armed robbery and murder for hire with Fred "Killer" Burke. Winkler was a senior associate of Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone and is considered a suspect in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Winkler is believed to be the first member of the National Crime Syndicate to be murdered for talking to the FBI. Early life Winkler was born August Henry Winkeler to Bernard J. Winkeler (September 28, 1862- November 23, 1928) and Mary K. (June 1, 1862- March 5, 1923) in Lemay, Missouri of German descent; he was a brother to Clara (April 21, 1895 – June 23, 1987), Jacob C. (1893-1961) and Anna C. (1890-1960). In September 1917, at the age of 16, Winkler enlisted in the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps and served on the Western Front with the 91st Infantry Division. After his return to America, Winkler joined up with the notorious Egan's Rats gang. It was during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernon Miller
Vernon C. "Verne" Miller (August 25, 1896 – November 29, 1933) was a freelance Prohibition Gunfighter, gunman, Rum-running, bootlegger, bank robber and former sheriff in Huron, South Dakota, who, as the only identified gunman in the Kansas City massacre, was found beaten and strangled to death shortly after the incident. Early life Born in Kimball, South Dakota, Miller moved 35 miles northeast to Huron, South Dakota, Huron in 1914 and began working as an auto mechanic. Two years later Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army, seeing action in the Pancho Villa Expedition, Mexican expedition into Mexico, launched after repeated bandit raids across the border. After the United States entry into World War I, Miller served in France with the 18th Infantry Regiment (United States), 18th Infantry Regiment and, decorated for valor and bravery, he rose to the rank of color sergeant by the war's end. After being discharged from the military in 1918, Miller returned to Huron and joined the city' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turn State's Evidence
A criminal turns state's evidence by admitting guilt and testifying as a witness for the state against their associate(s) or accomplice(s), often in exchange for leniency in sentencing or immunity from prosecution.Howard Abadinsky, ''Organized Crime'' (9th ed: Cengage Learning, 2010), p. 368. The testimony of a witness who testifies against co-conspirator(s) may be important evidence. According to a 2008 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime document, persons who turn state's evidence "are known by a variety of names, including cooperating witnesses, crown witnesses, snitches, witness collaborators, justice collaborators, state witnesses, "supergrasses" and ''pentiti'' (Italian for 'those who have repented')." United Kingdom In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms, the term is to turn Queen's or King's evidence, depending on the sex of the reigning monarch. The term "turning approver" or "turn king's approver" was also historically used, especially in Ireland; an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clarence Lieder
Clarence Lieder (August 15, 1906 – January 1969) was a mechanic and armorer for Chicago's underworld and Depression-era criminals, as well as the primary competitor to Joe Bergl Joseph P. Bergl (1901 – September 1950) was a mechanic who supplied specially designed vehicles for Chicago's underworld, including Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, Depression-era outlaw George "Machine Gun" Kelly, and members of the Barker Gang. Ope .... Owner of the ''Oakley Auto Construction Company'', located at the corner of Division Street and Oakley Avenue in Chicago's North Side, Lieder competed with Bergl in supplying both mobster and other criminals with customized automobiles throughout Prohibition and during the early-1930s. A longtime friend of bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson, Lieder also hid John Dillinger and Homer Van Meter from authorities after being unable to use their usual Chicago safehouses in early-1934. Shortly after Dillinger's death, Lieder closed his operations and l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Depression-era Outlaws ...
This is a list of the Great Depression-era outlaws spanning the years of Prohibition and the Great Depression known as the "Public Enemy" era. Those include high-profile criminals wanted by state and federal law enforcement agencies for armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, and other violent crime. These are not to be confused with organized crime figures of the same period. Prohibition and the "Public Enemy" era (c. 1919–1939) References {{Reflist External links Public Enemy #1 Gallery: Depression-Era Desperadoes''Booknotes'' interview with Bryan Burrough on ''Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34'', September 19, 2004. * Depression-era outlaws Out Out may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander * ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese film ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
