Fred Albin Ossanna (August 13, 1893 – September 1978) was a

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

who, along with

Kid Cann Isadore Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900 – June 21, 1981), commonly known as Kid Cann, was a Romanian Jewish-American organized crime enforcer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over four decades. He remains the most notorious mobster in the ...

, oversaw the dismantling of the Minneapolis-St. Paul streetcar system as head of

Twin City Rapid Transit Company The Twin City Rapid Transit Company (TCRT), also known as Twin City Lines (TCL), was a transportation company that operated streetcars and buses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Other types of transp ...

in the 1950s. Ossanna had been hired by Charles Green, a

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

speculator who had purchased a large number of TCRT stock shares and ousted D.J. Strouse as head of the company soon after. When it was discovered that Green had connections to

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

, Ossanna took control. In a period of 22 months ending in June 1954, rails were removed from city streets where trolleys once traveled to be replaced by

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buses. Ossanna and associate Barney Larrick were both convicted of

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

on August 6, 1960 for activities that had taken place during the conversion from streetcars to buses. Ossanna had been a prominent local attorney, and left marks in various places. He helped found the Sunset Memorial Park and Funeral Chapel in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

in 1922 by providing funding. In 1938, he had acted as counsel in a debacle known as the " Bemidji Affair" where bidding irregularities had appeared on a project for the Bemidji State Teachers College (Bemidji State University). At some point, Ossanna had done some work for National City Lines, a company that became infamous for buying up streetcar lines and converting them to bus systems.

References

External links

Inventory of the Fred A. Ossanna Papers, 1927-1972
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ossanna, Fred Minnesota lawyers 1893 births 1978 deaths Criminals from Minnesota American people convicted of mail and wire fraud 20th-century American lawyers Organized crime in Minnesota