Showing posts with label Infamous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infamous. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

A Brief History of Alphonse Francis “Sonny” Capone Jr.

Alphonse Francis “Sonny” Capone Jr. was born December 4, 1918, in Chicago, Illinois, to parents Al Capone and Mary "Mae" Josephine Coughlin with congenital syphilis, a serious mastoid infection, passed on from Al. He survived the required brain surgery for the disease but was left partially deaf.
Sonny Jr. did not share his father's first name. His full name was Albert Francis Capone.

Al Capone had money, power, and prestige in Chicago, New York, and Miami. He sent his son to the best schools available, among them Saint Patrick’s High School in Miami. 
Sonny in 1934
There, Sonny befriended a young Cuban expatriate by the name of Desiderio Alberto Arnaz and graduated in 1937. Arnaz was the bandleader and I Love Lucy star and creator who later gained lasting fame as Desi Arnaz. 

Sonny attended the University of Notre Dame but eventually completed his studies and obtained his degree at the University of Miami. Sonny maintained a simple life after completing his schooling.

After attending the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Sonny Capone transferred to the University of Miami, earning his bachelor's degree from the institution in 1941. In one of his first big career choices, he found he couldn't escape the criminal element entirely. While working as a used car salesman in Florida, he found out his boss was changing the numbers on vehicles' odometers, a seedy and illegal practice. So, Sonny quit and switched gears to printing, where he served as an apprentice before deciding on a couple more profession changes. In addition to trying tire distribution, the younger Capone ran a restaurant in Miami with his mother. According to Capone: The Man and His Era, Sonny attempted to use his underworld connections to secure a loan, asking the Chicago "Outfit" for $24,000 to expand the business. It refused.

He had four daughters with Diane Ruth Casey, whom he married in 1941. Veronica, Teresa, Barbara, and Patricia Capone-Brown. Diane and Sonny divorced in July 1964, and Sonny remarried twice. Albert was married to a woman named America "Amie" Francis. It is not sure if it was his second or third wife, but she was listed in his daughters' obituary as step mother. We assume she was his third wife.

Mae Coughlin and her son, Albert Francis Capone, purchased Ted's Grotto in Miami in 1956.

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Ted's Grotto started in the 1940s as a small, unassuming diner on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami by its namesake, Ted Bowers. Ted's Grotto became a regular hang-out for Entertainers like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Judy Garland. They'd swing by after their gigs at the Fontainebleau or the Eden Roc hotels, drawn by the intimate atmosphere and enjoying a good time. The Grotto wasn't just for entertainers, though. Politicians, athletes, and yes, even mobsters rubbed shoulders at its red booths, creating a unique Miami cocktail of glitz and grit. Ted's Grotto's reign as Miami's hottest spot didn't last forever. By the late 1960s, the city's nightlife scene had shifted, and the Grotto began to lose its luster. The restaurant closed its doors in the early 1970s, leaving a legacy of good food, music, and even better memories.

Mae Coughlin and Sonny injected Ted's Grotto with a much-needed dose of glamour. The restaurant expanded, the soup and sandwich menu got much fancier (Oysters Rockefeller, Lobster Thermidor, Tournedos Rossini, Steak Diane, Baked Alaska, and Crêpes Suzette), and the clientele shifted towards celebrities and socialites. 

On August 7, 1965, Albert Francis Capone was nabbed by the police for a petty crime. A store clerk from the Kwik Chek market in North Miami Beach caught him pocketing two bottles of aspirin and some batteries worth $3.50 ($30.60 today). from the Kwik Chek market in North Miami Beach. "Everybody has a little larceny in them," Sonny quipped upon his arrest. He pleaded no contest to the charge of shoplifting and was sentenced to two years' probation. 

When he went before a judge, he got two years of probation but shrugged off his crime by saying to the judge that “everybody has a little larceny in them.”

Following his arrest, he changed his name to Albert Francis Brown in 1966. According to his lawyer, Sonny Capone did so because he was “just sick and tired of fighting the name.”

On July 8, 2004, Albert Francis Capone died in the tiny California town of Auburn Lake Trails. His wife, America “Amie” Francis, told a reporter that Albert Francis Capone was much more than his family name.

“Al Capone has been dead a long time,” she said. “His son had nothing to do with him. Let him rest in peace, for crying out loud. He suffered enough in his life for being who he was.”

After changing his name, Albert Francis Capone, aka Sonny Capone, aka Albert Francis Brown, lived a quiet, law-abiding life. He married three times and is survived by numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Friday, January 5, 2024

Al Capone's Police Photo from New York City, December 26, 1925. The real story.

Twenty-six-year-old Al Capone's primary reason for being in New York was to bring his son, Albert "Sonny" Capone, to a specialist for a critical medical procedure. Sonny was suffering from a mastoid infection that threatened his life. The operation, thankfully, was successful and saved Sonny's life, although it left him partially deaf.
While Sonny was recovering, Capone took the opportunity to socialize and visit old haunts. He ended up at the Adonis Social Club in Brooklyn, a speakeasy with ties to his former boss, Frankie Yale. During the early hours of December 26, a violent altercation broke out involving the infamous Irish mobster Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan. Lonergan was shot and killed, along with two of his associates, in what some believe was a planned hit orchestrated by Yale and potentially carried out with Capone's involvement.

Following the Adonis Social Club incident, Capone was briefly detained by the New York Police Department. This was likely due to his proximity to the crime scene and his high-profile status. While in police custody, he was photographed as part of a lineup procedure, a standard practice for identifying suspects.

It's important to note that the exact details of the Adonis Social Club incident and Capone's role in it remain shrouded in some mystery. He was never officially charged with Lonergan's murder, but the incident undoubtedly added to his notoriety and cemented his image as a ruthless and powerful mob boss.

Copyright © 2024 Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

The Legacy of Chicagoan David Kennison, Debunked.

RECORDED HISTORY
Most Chicagoans have likely never heard of David Kennison (aka Kinnison). And yet, when he died here in 1852, his funeral was the largest affair of its sort in the history of Chicago. The city officials paid for the funeral and donated two cemetery lots for a proper burial site, intending to erect a monument in his honor.

When he died, Chicagoans believed David Kennison to be the last Survivor of the Boston Tea Party. In addition to the honor of having such an important historical figure in their midst, early Chicagoans were also proud to claim Kennison as a Revolutionary soldier. To add to the fascination of this man, everyone knew he was old. Really old.
This boulder, honoring David Kennison, is located at the foot of Wisconsin Street at Clark Street. It was placed one city block north of the actual grave site.


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The plaque does not say that David Kennison had fought under General Washington nor that he was a soldier at Fort Dearborn (he avoided the famous massacre because he was a prisoner of the Potawatomi Indian tribe at the time). Furthermore, he claimed to have fought under General Cornwall at the Battle of Bunker Hill. 

The plaque on the boulder in Lincoln Park that commemorates the grave of David Kennison states he died at the age of 115, 3 months and 17 days. It doesn't say that people also knew he had been married four times and had twenty-two children.

The newer plaque also does not say that David Kennison had fought under General Washington and that he was a soldier at Fort Dearborn but avoided the massacre because he was a prisoner of the Potawatomi Indian tribe at the time. He also fought under General Cornwall at the Battle of Bunker Hill. These stories and more have accompanied Kennison's legacy, which was intact for over one hundred years.

DEBUNKING THE DAVID KENNISON STORY
If Kennison's birth year of 1764 is true, he was only nine years old at the time of the Boston Tea Party and twelve at the start of the Revolutionary War in 1776. His years would have precluded the possibility of his participation in the Tea Party and his enlistment in the Revolutionary War…

It is true that after 1812, Kennison gave his age in 1814 as 42 years; in 1818, he said he was 56, while in 1820, he claimed he was 79. Startling conclusions would emanate from these dates, and they would have necessitated his being born on three different dates, 1772, 1762, and 1741, respectively. When making the statement that he was 79 in 1820, he also said that he had a family of young children, 17, 14, 11, 7 and 5. years old.

Setting aside as unanswered whether or not it is remarkable for a man of this age to have so young a family, would it not be possible that the last vestige of memory as to birth year might have been obliterated from the mental tablet of this soldier, who received a severe hand wound from a musket shot, who had both legs below the knee, his collar bone and two ribs broken; and, too, who was wholly illiterate, having learned to read after he was 62 years of age?

Another point involving the question of correct birth data has evolved from anthropometry or the science of measuring the body by regions, but in this case, by stature. Documentary evidence shows that Kennison was 4'9" tall in 1781, while 33 years later, he was 5'6 1/2" tall. How was this done?

Up to about 15, girls grow tall faster than boys. From this time on to 22 and 23, boys sprint up to about the stature they retain for the rest of their days. A boy can increase his height by 9 1/2 inches between the ages of 17 to 23. These deductions are, with few exceptions, quite reliable. This would seem to be in favor of the birth year 1764. David Kennison died in 1852. Was he 115 years old or 88?

Although several gaps in the story are told of a certain soldier who died in Chicago at the age of 115 years, gaps a correct historian might wish were better bridged, nevertheless, after the late Fernando Jones, with others, had pointed out the spot of Kennison's burial place, as best they could, the following organization set up a monument to him.

In conclusion, the doctor said: "Even though metaphorically speaking, the accuracy of 1764 as the birth year would take away one glittering pearl from the crown of our hero, his unusual longevity, we have left two orbs that shine with great brilliancy – these orbs are his services in the war of independence and in the war of 1812. For these services, a grateful people clothe him with an armor that neither jealousy nor envy can tarnish, nor can the shafts of hate penetrate and efface the good work he did in helping to break asunder the throngs that were intended to bind a mighty people in servitude."

The David Kennison chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1921.
The original brass plaque in Lincoln Park, Chicago.


From that time through the 1950s, gatherings were held at the boulder to commemorate Memorial Day, Flag Day, George Washington's birthday, and the Boston Tea Party anniversary. David Kennison was consistently mentioned in various books about the Boston event and Chicago's Lincoln Park throughout this period.

After Kennison was cited in a 1959 Chicago Tribune article on the whereabouts of the remains of Illinois' Revolutionary War veterans, his name did not appear in that newspaper again until 1974. In an excerpt from a question to the Action Line column, someone wrote, "A special marker stone, complete with a bronze plaque, was placed near his grave near the Wisconsin Street entrance to the park. But look at it now! Vandals have stolen the plaque and spray-painted the rock with obscene graffiti. Is this how Kennison's grave should look for our nation's bicentennial?"

The Lincoln Park neighborhood was in a housing slump in the 1970s, and the area was run down. This timeframe coincides with the downfall of the David Kennison legacy. On July 17, 1972, Chicago Daily News reported that "three bronze plaques had been torn from the granite boulder marking the burial spot." The boulder stood bare in the park for two and a half years. The original bronze tablet was replaced with an aluminum replica on December 19, 1974.

The Chicago History Museum's research center has an essay on file with the cataloged date 1973. The report, titled "David Kennison and the Chicago Sting," was written by Albert G. Overton. In this paper, Overton systematically discounts David Kennison's Chicago exploits by explaining, through various primary source documents, that he assumed other Kennison (and Kinnison) men's identities to tell his own story. In five written pages, followed by four pages of cited sources, Albert Overton presented information that historians accepted as the real David Kennison story. Early in the essay, after describing Kennison's funeral procession, Overton writes:

"Muffled drums beat a slow march for this magnificent parade was a funeral cortege to honor a well-known Revolutionary War hero. Actually, they were escorting the mortal remains of one of the most colorful imposters ever to take the City of Chicago."

After listing the battles in which Kennison asserted to have been a participant and citing another Kennison claim, Overton writes:

"Apparently, no one ever questioned his ability to attend the surrender in Yorktown, while at the same time, he was a captive of the Indians in upper New York State."

The charm of his story has endured over 123 years. His claims have never been challenged in all the articles about him, and only a few have suggested he might have bent the truth a little.

Overton then breaks down David Kennison's likely age and military history, citing many National Archives documents, including pension files, census records dating back to the first census of 1790, and Bounty Land files.

Albert Overton acknowledged that David Kennison spelled his family name Kinnison and traces the authenticity of his signature by the distinctively written "K." Overton chooses to refer to Kennison through the Kennison spelling as it had been the accepted name in which the man had been known. After listing dates, supposed ages, and summarizing mathematically, Overton concludes:

"He was about 7 years old at the time of the tea party, saw no Revolutionary War service, and was about 85 years old, not 115 when he died."

Overton continues his paper, parsing through the Kennison family genealogy. Acknowledging that although Kennison may have had four wives, he found documentary evidence for only four children. Of those four, only a daughter, Sarah B. Johnson, had specific documentation. The Overton paper concludes:

"Hopefully, this publication will sometime assist those who may be David Kennison's true descendants, be used as an example of what can be found through proper research efforts, and amuse those who will appreciate the humor of the little old man who conned his way into history and stung Chicago for a most valuable piece of real estate as his final resting place."

CONCLUSION
These stories, and more, have accompanied Kennison's legacy, which was intact for more than one hundred years.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Chicago's First Crime King, Irishman Michael Cassius McDonald. (1839-1907)

Though long-forgotten by many, latecomers like Capone, Torrio and Colosimo owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Cassius McDonald, the man who brought together criminals and elected officials, setting the stage for organized crime in Chicago. During a 50-year career in the underworld, journalists, gangsters, mayors, and even one President of the United States took orders from Chicago's original crime boss.

Michael Cassius McDonald arrived in Chicago just before the Civil War. A teenage runaway from Niagra Falls, New York, McDonald knew no one in Chicago. His childhood friend and fellow freight train jumper, Henry Marvin, died en route and was buried by McDonald without fanfare.
Michael Cassius McDonald


In the 1850s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, opening the city to a flood of eager young men with big ideas. For years, young men like Marshall Field, who opened a retail emporium in downtown Chicago, and George Pullman, creator of the eponymous sleeping and dining cars that made travel by train comfortable, later carried President Abraham Lincoln's body on a final journey from the White House to Springfield, Illinois, and Aaron Montgomery Ward, the founder of retail catalog sales, and an advocate for keeping Chicago's lakefront "open, clear and free" forever.

But when Mike McDonald rode the rails in the 1850s, passengers sat on hard wooden benches as they stared at an unchanging landscape through sooty windows.  With little to occupy bored passengers after consuming lunches brought from home, passengers eagerly welcomed the sight of boys called "candy butchers" who trudged through the aisles.  In exchange for a few pennies and free transportation to Chicago, runaways and orphans clad in ragged clothing peddled goods for the railroad. Sympathetic passengers, mistakenly believing that the boys received their fair share of profits, bought poor-quality goods from the candy butchers.  And Michael Cassius McDonald was the most successful candy butcher of his time.

An Enterprising Lad
Slight in stature, he peddled books and fruit to kind-hearted ladies. Male passengers, duped by his innocent appearance, took candy home only to discover when opened by a loved one, the boxes were half empty. Eager to increase his profits, McDonald expanded his business to include phony raffle tickets. Chicago crime writer Richard C. Lindberg credits McDonald with inventing the "prize package swindle." Lindberg explains that McDonald guaranteed a cash prize of up to $5 in every box of candy purchased. Most prizes amounted to a few cents, but once hooked by the possibility of a big prize, greedy passengers tried and tried again, leading McDonald to proclaim, "There is a sucker born every minute" long before film star W.C. Field uttered the famous phrase.

Most boys were tired of the grind, working long days for pennies and sleeping in dirty railroad yards a  night. But, now in his late teens, McDonald wasn't like most boys. He expanded his business. He learned to play cards from wealthy passengers, not afraid to gamble tidy sums of money. A keen observer of human behavior, McDonald watched their body language as they bluffed and wagered through intense poker games. S on, he exchanged his ragged clothes for the attire of a card sharp: a crisp suit, polished shoes and an ever-present cigar.  e continued to work days, but at night, he joined floating card games in The Sands, Chicago's vice district, going up against some of the best card sharps in the country.

Until the election of Mayor John Wentworth in 1857, Chicago officials unofficially tolerated The Sands, but within a few weeks of his first term, Mayor Wentworth declared war on The Sands. Literally, overnight, the mayor and his police force destroyed The Sands, burning to the ground or tearing down every shack, brothel and gambling parlor after issuing a 30-minute warning to occupants to get out.

But Mike McDonald was not discouraged. He correctly predicted that gambling, no longer contained in one Chicago neighborhood, would spread throughout the city, making finding gamblers harder for police. In fact, the police force was so inept that Mayor Wentworth fired the entire department until public pressure forced him to reverse his decision.

Discrimination against the Irish and Irish Americans prohibited McDonald from applying for many honest jobs; elected officials enacted legislation banning immigrants from holding city jobs. But McDonald's il gal business was flush with a customer base, including politicians, judges and city officials.

Gaming the System
McDonald operated Chicago's most successful floating faro game, a European card game popularized in America by Wyatt Earp and Mississippi Riverboat gamblers. Played with a unique deck of cards laid out on an elaborately decorated card table with hidden compartments to allow dealers to skim money, players had little chance of winning. Occasionally McDonald instructed his dealers to adjust the game in favor of influential business leaders but quipped, "Never give a sucker an even break" – another phrase later popularized by W. C. Fields. Games often ended in violence, but by this time, local cops could be called upon to remove the angry patron in exchange for a bonus from McDonald's men.

When President Abraham Lincoln called upon Illinois citizens to sign up for duty in the Union Army, McDonald did his best to aid the call to action. Though able-bodied, 22-year-old Mike McDonald did not enlist in The Irish Brigade. Instead, he organized groups of bounty jumpers. These men collected a $300 signing bonus called a bounty and then deserted the army as soon as possible with money in hand and returned to Chicago to enlist under an assumed name. McDonald pocketed 50% in exchange for a promise of immunity from a crime punishable by hanging. Government officials desperate to fill quotas looked the other way as McDonald signed up Chicago's drunken, derelict and destitute men. During the first two years of the Civil War, Illinois supplied more than 130,000 men to the Union army. McDonald's accumulated enough money to purchase a saloon and adjoining gambling parlor in a luxury Chicago hotel.

Perhaps it was ready access to an unlimited supply of alcohol that fueled McDonald's violent temper. On one occasion, he punched and kicked a 60-year-old woman who owned a roadhouse he frequented; he knocked down a man who tried to steal his handkerchief; he pummeled a man in a saloon, and when the poor fellow tried to defend himself against McDonald, the police hauled the man off to jail.

Chicago and Mike McDonald prospered as the nation suffered through the Civil War. Businessmen in tow to negotiate lucrative Union contracts, White southerners displaced by war and Confederate soldiers, and escapees from a prison camp on Chicago's south side provided a steady stream of gamblers at McDonald's gambling hall. Through his wealthy customers, McDonald learned of skyrocketing land values caused by the demand for new factories and housing for workers, and he invested heavily in real estate. By the war's end, McDonald owned several buildings, four gambling clubs and a liquor distributorship.

His notoriety attracted women of a specific type: young and flashy. Isabella or Belle Jewel met Michael McDonald when she danced in the chorus line at a popular theater where John Wilkes Booth performed Shakespeare. Smitten by Bell's beauty, McDonald quickly welcomed her into his circle of friends, introducing her as Mrs. McDonald, though they never married. They dined in the finest restaurants and lived in an exclusive neighborhood. Whether it was physical abuse at McDonald's hand or his habitual drunkenness that drove Belle to leave him after seven years, she did so with a flair for the unexpected. The former chorus girl, no longer the belle of the ball, joined a St. Louis convent, where she remained until she died in 1889.

Michael Cassius McDonald served jail time in 1869. He was arrested for allegedly stealing $30,000 from an assistant cashier of the Chicago Dock Company. The cashier had given the money to McDonald to finance his gambling operations. McDonald was unable to afford bail, and, consequentially, spent three months in prison prior to being acquitted at his trial. He never served prison time again.

The Great Chicago Fire
A few weeks after Belle's sudden departure from Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed most of Chicago and every personal possession, business and building McDonald owned. Chicago and Michael Cassius McDonald were ruined, but not for long.

Chicago began rebuilding almost immediately after the outgoing mayor honored hundreds of dead citizens by closing saloons for one week.

By the end of the year, McDonald married Mary Ann Noonan Goudy, a stunning 24-year-old divorcee and mother of two. She and her toddlers moved into the house McDonald had shared with Belle Jewel.

Thousands of laborers rushed to Chicago to build new houses for over 90,000 homeless citizens (Chicago Shelter Cottage Kits Built Immediately After the Fire). For months, skilled tradesmen arrived at a busy railway station in the heart of a red-light district where McDonald set up a shabby but conveniently located ga bling parlor. To outsmart competing gambling parlors in the area, McDonald hired well-dressed men to greet passengers as soon as they arrived. Yes, McDonald's men knew where to get a hot meal and, incidentally, an "honest" card game to pass the time while looking for employment.

McDonald's business drew the attention of Chicago's new mayor, Joseph Medill, co-owner of the Chicago Tribune; Mayor Medill tried to shut him down. Medill successfully lobbied the state legislature to increase penalties for owners of gambling parlors. He forced saloon owners to close on Sunday, the one day a week that laborers were free to enjoy a drink or two at their neighborhood tavern. He ordered his police superintendent to raid gambling parlors. When he was lax in carrying out his duties, Medill's newspaper published a list of known gambling parlors and their locations.

With the support of the liquor distributors association and the publisher of a competing newspaper, McDonald publicly opposed the mayor's edict to close saloons on Sunday. For a while, saloons remained open, but owners dimmed the lights, locked the front door and admitted patrons through a side or back door.

Well aware that the police superintendent knew his men took bribes from gambling parlors, including his own, McDonald threatened to expose him. As a compromise, McDonald and others under his protection received advance notice of impending raids. For the benefit of the public, police officers removed gambling equipment they stored for pickup by the owners the following day. On occasion, the police smashed furniture, but only well-worn or broken items chosen by the owner. McDonald posted bail if an employee or gambler was inexplicably arrested in the raids.

Mayor Medill continued to pressure McDonald's, but the gambling king emerged victorious. The police superintendent and his successor were fired. Mayor Medill fled to Europe to seek treatment for unnamed health issues. McDonald successfully fully offered his own candidate to replace Mayor Medill. With a new mayor in office, McDonald flourished. Upon McDonald's request, Mayor Harvey Colvin repealed the law that banned the sale of alcohol on Sundays. Recognizing McDonald's ability to get things done, Chicago's gambling community clambered for McDonald's support – the result, Chicago's original crime syndicate. Flush with payoffs from politicians who paid McDonald hush money in connection with their own shady businesses and funds contributed by small and big-time gamblers, McDonald opened the most notorious gambling house in America.

The Store
In September 1873, the beautifully crafted wooden doors of McDonald's 24/7 department store of gambling, popularly known as "The Store," swung open to reveal the luxurious interior of a multi-story brick building: fine carpets, thick velvet drapes and gleaming mirrors. A cigar store that sold the finest imported cigars and a saloon stocked with the best wines available occupied the ground level. On the second floor, a staff of impeccably dressed men stood behind oak gambling tables, ready to greet well-heeled players. The Palace European Hotel, little more than a fancy rooming house, welcomed out-of-town gamblers on the third floor. No longer happy to occupy the home of her husband's former lover, Mary and the kids lived together on the upper floor with McDonald as an occasional overnight guest.

McDonald extended credit to politicians who walked over from City Hall and U.S. Senator James G. Fair. A frequent visitor from Nevada, Fair made millions from co-ownership of the Comstock Lode, the richest silver mine in the United States, and from a partnership in a California railroad, Fair couldn’t resist paying a visit to The Store when he changed trains in Chicago on his way to work in Washington, D.C. Sir Charles Russell, a member of the British Parliament, played poker at The Store. McDonald treated with generosity wives who complained their husbands gambled away the family rent money, refunding their losses and vowing to ban them from The Store. He contributed to charities. When someone asked McDonald for a contribution of $2 to help defray the cost of burying a fallen police officer, he quipped, “Here’s $10, bury five of them.”

Despite McDonald’s dislike of policemen, he kept some on his payroll. He brandished a pistol at a large political gathering, but officers on duty kept their distance. Police escorted drunken voters to a polling place set up at McDonald’s business, where he offered naturalization papers and voter registration forms on the spot. During a drunken rage, he broke the nose of a stranger who commented on a newspaper article unfavorable to McDonald and his supporters. The man filed criminal charges, but the case never reached the court. McDonald assaulted a newspaperman and threatened to cut off his ear. When arrested for the attempted murder of a rival gambler, a police officer escorted him to jail in a special carriage and recommended to the judge McDonald be released on bail immediately. Of course, he was acquitted of all charges, and that evening, he held a banquet for judges, city officials and police officers.

For a time, members of the Chicago police force disregarded department orders to raid The Store. But occasionally, policemen showed up unannounced. One evening, a group of officers bounded into The Store and up the stairs to the family living quarters with a warrant to arrest McDonald. Mr. McDonald was not home then, but Mrs. McDonald was. She responded by firing two shots at the policemen. Charged with attempted murder, she was led to a penitentiary where she stayed just until her husband hired an expensive lawyer named Alfred Trude and bribed a judge who released Mary before reprimanding the policemen for their unlawful raid of the McDonald family home.

Like her husband, Mary enjoyed keeping company with minor celebrities who performed in Chicago’s many theaters. She quickly fell in love with Billy Arlington, an African-American banjo player who lived with his wife Julia on Chicago’s South Side. Mary showered Arlington with gifts and even brazenly introduced him to her husband at a dinner party. When Billy had to leave Chicago for a performance in San Francisco, Mrs. McDonald followed. By the time they reached Denver, Mary declared her undying love for Billy Arlington in a letter she mailed home to her husband. Undeterred, McDonald followed the couple to San Francisco, where he threatened Billy and Mrs. McDonald with a loaded pistol.

McDonald forgave his wife for her indiscretion. He promised his wife a new home away from The Store and sealed the deal when he moved his family to a limestone mansion on a wide boulevard lined with houses of prominent Chicagoans, including the mayor.

Mary promised to be faithful, and for a while, she was. Through her husband's generous contributions to a local Catholic Church, she met Father Joseph Moysant. While church workers completed the preparation of his living quarters at the church, Mary offered the priest a spare room, and often her own room, in the McDonald's spacious mansion. On one occasion, they took a secret trip out of town. They continued a clandestine affair undetected for two years until they decided to leave Chicago forever.

Like Belle Jewel, Mary left Chicago wearing a nun's habit, but she had no intention of joining a convent. The lovers took a train to New York, where they boarded a ship bound for Paris. This time, it took McDonald two months to track her down. Under the advice of his lawyer, Alfred Trude, the man who defended Mrs. McDonald against the attempted murder of a policeman, McDonald filed for a divorce. Shak n by his wife's latest infidelity, he lamented to a friend, "When you cannot trust your wife and your priest, whom can you trust?"

Though busy operating his gambling parlor, collecting protection money and distributing police bribes, McDonald ran some honest and not-quite-honest enterprises. He bought the Chicago Globe newspaper, rivaling former Mayor Medill’s newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. He commanded hustlers and pickpockets to stay clear of the area around the Columbian Exposition so as not to damage Chicago’s reputation while it hosted millions of fairgoers. At a private meeting in the White House, he persuaded President Chester Arthur to pardon a colleague convicted in a Ponzi scheme. 

He operated a racetrack. He invested in a quarry that sold limestone to city contractors at inflated prices. He hired a crew to paint city hall with a special liquid guaranteed to render the crumbling building waterproof and fireproof, billing the City of Chicago $180,000 for a job estimated at $30,000. The unique liquid turned out to be a worthless mixture of lime, lead and linseed oil.


He built the West Side Lake Street 'L' that connected the Loop, which began service on November 6, 1893. Regular passenger service began between Madison Street and Market Street to California Avenue. Over 50,000 passengers rode on the first day. The line was extended west to Homan Avenue on November 24, 1893, to Hamlin Avenue in January 1894, to 48th Avenue (now Cicero Avenue) in March 1894, and to 52nd Avenue (now Laramie Avenue) in April 1894. When the completed Loop opened on October 3, 1897, the Lake Street Elevated became the first line to utilize the entire quadrangle. So shrewd was Michael McDonald that he bribed city aldermen thousands of dollars to buy their votes—ensuring that one of the train stops was near one of his illegal racetracks on the West Side.

McDonald was a busy man, but still, a man who loved women. At age 56, he married a 21-year-old Jewish actress named Dora Feldman, who he remembered from the times she and his son played together as schoolmates. Like McDonald, Dora was divorced, and like his former wife, the new Mrs. McDonald was attracted to artistic types. For a few years, the couple was happy to host lavish dinner parties in the home McDonald purchased for Dora and to dine late at night in fine restaurants after the theater or opera. But McDonald was getting older and slowing down. While he spent his afternoons napping, Dora sneaked away to meet her teenage lover, Webster Guerin. Guerin couldn’t support himself by selling his paintings, so Dora set him up in a picture-framing business downtown. Whether or not McDonald suspected his wife of carrying on a long-term affair, he continued to love his wife, even to the point of converting to Judaism and not questioning how she spent his money.

When Dora suspected that Webster Guerin was seeing another woman, who, in fact, was his brother’s girlfriend, she became enraged. She threatened to kill the woman. She threatened to kill Guerin. On a cold February morning, Dora burst into her lover’s office and shot him dead in full view of witnesses. Though she admitted to the police she killed her lover, she told her husband that she killed the man because she was blackmailing her. McDonald paid for her defense, a team of prominent lawyers led by Alfred Trude, who defended his first wife against a charge of attempted murder.

The scandal took a toll on McDonald, and he did not live to see his wife acquitted of murder. Michael Cassius McDonald died with his former wife, Mary, at his side, and McDonald had $2 million in assets ($65M today).

Michael Cassius McDonald was interred at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery on August 9, 1907, in Chicago, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Friday, July 21, 2023

Cut-Rate Toys at 2424 West Devon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, (1958-1991). My Story.

Marvin Hecht (1927-2019) opened Cut-Rate Toys at 2424 West Devon Avenue, Chicago, in 1958. He was an angry man who apparently didn't like children (his angry actions spoke volumes). He sat in his raised watch tower by the cashiers. 

I'm sure shoppers threw stuff at Hecht, which is why he wrapped his cage in chicken wire. Try yelling at adults to their faces and see what happens. Now I understand why he secured his little perch. Adults put up with Hecht's antics because the prices were low.

Hecht's philosophy regarding toys was "low price, high volume." He'd buy up odd lots at toy shows and pick up closeouts from Mattel, Milton Bradley, Hasbro and other toy makers. 
Marvin and Renee Hecht




“He would get on the microphones and say, ‘Get your children’s hands off the toys or get them out of the store, NOW!" his Daughter, Linda Karmin, said. “I mean, people were terrified of him.” Dad was a passionate musician who played classical piano concerts for charity.

Hecht habitually posted hand-written signs on the front door, naming and shaming children who had been caught stealing. The signs were quite blunt and always included the kid's name, address and telephone number of the shoplifter's parents.
You can see a note on the front door in this photo. Example: "Bobby Smith at 6512 North Washtenaw was caught stealing from this store. Call his parents at HO 5-0000 and ask them why they raised a child who steals." 





When I was there with my mom, I heard the owner yell at adults and kids over the loudspeaker. 

I went into Cut-Rate Toys by myself with the money I was gifted for my 10th birthday.  

I was looking to buy a Hot Wheels track set. I picked up a box to see all the sides and what was included. Suddenly, I heard the owner yell over the loudspeaker, "YOU... IN ISLE NUMBER FIVE, PUT THAT BOX DOWN NOW!!! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" I was startled and embarrassed, and the box slipped out of my hands, hitting the floor and denting a corner of the box.

The owner came running out of his office, screaming, "NOW YOU'RE GOING TO BUY THAT!" I was furious. "If I'm not good enough to look at what I want to buy first," I said, "I just won't buy anything!" He grabbed me, but I was too quick and ran out of the store.

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At eight years old, I was taking the 155 Devon Bus to the Loyola 'L' station to take the subway downtown, by myself. I'd shop at Marshall Field & Company and usually went to Baer's Treasure Chest to play pinball and Skee-Ball and check out the Pro Magic Center on their second floor before heading home. In later years, I was lucky enought to meet Magician Marshall Brodien who worked part time at the Treasure Chest demonstrating complicated magic tricks for professionals. Brodien later opened the Magic Shop in Old Chicago shopping mall and amusement park in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

That was the last time I went to Cut-Rate Toys. I was so disgusted by the owner's behavior that I vowed never to give him my business again.

This behavior from a business owner would not be allowed today, as it would be considered harassment or defamation of a minor and perhaps result in a lawsuit.

In 1992, the store moved to 5409 West Devon Avenue in the Edgebrook neighborhood of the Forest Glen community in Chicago. The store closed in 2015. Marvin Hecht worked for 60 years in the toy business.

Copyright © 2023, Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Monday, July 3, 2023

The "Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab Kit," the Most Dangerous Toy in the World.

Marshall Field & Co. State Street Store sold the U-238, Christmas 1950, as informed by a former Toy Dept. employee.
The U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory kit for children was produced by Alfred Carlton Gilbert and is still listed as 'the most dangerous toy in the world.' It included three sources of radiation and four uranium ores that are also radioactive. The kit, which first went on sale in 1950, came with an instruction booklet, a pamphlet on how to prospect Uranium, and various tools that enabled children to dive deep into the world of atomic chemistry. 


A little history about Alfred Gilbert. First known as the Mysto Manufacturing Company, the company was founded in 1909 in Westville, Connecticut, by Alfred Carlton Gilbert, a magician, and his friend John Petrie to supply magic shows. 

Gilbert invented the Erector construction toy concept, first released by Mysto Manufacturing Company as the Mysto Erector Structural Steel Builder in 1911.
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In 1916, the company's name was changed to "A.C. Gilbert Company." 

Beginning in 1922, Gilbert made chemistry sets in various sizes and similar sets for other sciences, adding investigations into radioactivity in the 1950s with a kit featuring a Geiger counter and radioactive samples. 

Gilbert began making microscope kits in 1934. In 1938, Gilbert purchased American Flyer, a struggling manufacturer of toy trains, and Gilbert re-designed the entire product line, producing 1:64 scale trains running on an 'S' gauge track. At the same time, Gilbert introduced a line of 'HO' scale trains, primarily marketed under the brand name Gilbert HO.

After WWI, Gilbert released the Atomic Energy Lab in 1950. The kit allowed children to create and watch nuclear and chemical reactions using radioactive material. A line of inexpensive reflector telescopes followed the Sputnik-inspired science craze in the late 1950s.

"Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab Kit."
The most dangerous toy in the world.

The set originally sold for $49.50 ($630 today) and contained the following:
  1. Battery-powered Geiger–Müller counter.
  2. Electroscope.
  3. Spinthariscope.
  4. Wilson Cloud Chamber.
  5. Four glass jars containing uranium-bearing ore samples (autunite, torbernite, uraninite, and carnotite from the "Colorado plateau region") served as low-level radiation sources of Alpha particles (Pb-210 and Po-210).
  6. Beta particles (Ru-106).
  7. Gamma rays (possibly Zn-65).
  8. "Nuclear spheres" are used to make a model of an alpha particle.
  9. Gilbert Atomic Energy Manual — a 60-page instruction book.
  10. Learn How Dagwood Split the Atom — comic book introduction to radioactivity.
  11. Prospecting for Uranium — a book.
  12. Three C batteries.
  13. 1951 Gilbert Toys catalog.

  Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, May 17, 1950
Atomic Kits for Kiddies, Latest in Toys.
New Haven, Conn., May 16 [Special] — Now it's a toy for the kiddies ─ atomic energy, that is.

A toy manufacturing company disclosed today the atomic energy commission has sold it a quantity of what the Commission said is harmless, altho radio-active isotopes, for inclusion in an atomic energy kit for budding physicists.

A spokesman for the company said it plans to retail the kit under the name of "U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory." The outfit will include, in addition to the isotope, a sample of uranium ore, a book of instruction, and working reproductions of such scientific devices as a Geiger counter, a spinthariscope, and a cloud chamber.

MORE FOR TEENAGERS
"This outfit is more for teenagers than for kiddies," the spokesman said. "We expect it to do a great deal to promote the understanding of atomic energy." The same company has manufactured chemistry sets.

A boy owner of an atomic energy laboratory will be able to hide his isotope under a rug and locate it by the Geiger counter, it was said. He can put the isotope in a dark room and, with the aid of a spinthariscope, watch the manifestation of atomic disintegration thru the appearance of sparks.

The spokesman said the AEC and postal authorities have given approval for the manufacturing and distribution of the kits. The company is the A.G. Gilbert Manufacturing Company.

HALF-LIFE ISOTOPES
The AEC said in Washington DC that the isotopes sold to the toy company are known as "Zinc 65" with a "half-life" of 250 days.

The meaning of the term half-life was not explained. The AEC said it understood the company proposes to make toys in which children can watch atomic disintegration.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Mobster, Johnny Torrio, and the Handshake Murder.

In the nineteen twenties, Johnny Torrio was one of the top Chicago gangsters. He was prominent in the underworld but small in size at only five feet six inches tall. 

Chicago racketeer James "Big Jim" Colosimo brings his nephew Johnny Torrio to Chicago in 1910 from New York. Big Jim owned several houses of prostitution but did not favor working with illegal liquor. 

With the advent of prohibition, Torrio decided that the illicit liquor traffic would be more profitable than Colosimo's brothels. 

Colosimo was shot dead on May 11, 1920. No one was ever convicted of the murder.

With Colosimo out of the way, Johnny Torrio was the leading mobster controlling Chicago's South Side and the Loop.

Torrio now needed a loyal friend. He had already imported Al Capone from New York around 1920 to help him run Colosimo's "businesses." He let Capone start working as a bouncer in one of the brothels and soon found that Capone was ready for bigger and more important things. He then promoted Capone to be his right-hand man.

All the Chicago gangsters were busy trying to invade each other's territories.
Charles Dean O'Banion (1892-1924), the florist and his wife, Viola Kaniff. The leader of the North Side gang was the victim of the Handshake murder.






Charles "Dean" O'Banion graduated from the violent newspaper wars of early 20th century Chicago to become the chief bootlegging rival of mobsters Al Capone and Johnny Torrio, who ran the South Side. Dean was the North Side boss. 

O'Banion told Torrio he was buying a ranch in Colorado and settling down to live the rest of his life peacefully. He said he would sell his brewery, Chicago's finest, to Torrio.

When Torrio went to the brewery to inspect his purchase, the police raided the establishment. Torrio knew that O'Banion had set him up. After Torrio had served the short jail term for operating a brewery, he decided that O'Banion should die for double-crossing him and ordered the hit.

Dean was in his North Side flower shop, a front for his Mob activities, when a Torrio associate from New York, Frankie Yale, visited, hand outstretched in friendship. With him were two known gunmen from the Genna organization. A few minutes later, O'Banion was dead from six gunshot wounds in his flower shop. This murder was nicknamed the "handshake murder." No one was pinned with the murder, but the police suspected that the hit was ordered by Torrio.
Johnny "Papa Johnny" Torrio, 1939
With O'Banion dead, Torrio figured he ought to get out of the way of O'Banion's men. He and his Anna Theodosia Jacobs Torrio returned to Italy for three years and then moved to New York, where he became involved in criminal activities again. He spent two and a half years in prison for income tax evasion, being paroled in 1941. Torrio died in 1957, leaving a legacy of one of Illinois' top 1920s gangsters. 

Dean's funeral was the biggest anyone could remember, and among those attending were Al Capone and the South Side Gang members. But there soon would be other funerals. Charles Dean O'Banion is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Chicago.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicago Newspaper Wars at the Turn of the 20th Century.

The Chicago circulation wars were a period of competition between William Randolph Hearst's Chicago Evening American and both Robert R. McCormick's Chicago Tribune and Victor Lawson's Chicago Daily News in the early 1900s that devolved into violence and resulted in more than 20 deaths.
William Randolph Hearst Sr., 1906, was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. (Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts.)


The nine established English-language newspapers in Chicago enjoyed a friendly rivalry, competing for readers and advertisers through sensational headlines, lurid photos, and scoops.  Chicago had thousands of privately-owned newsstands licensed by the city. Newsstand operators purchased bales of the major newspapers to resell.

In 1900, the National Association of Democratic Clubs elected Hearst its President, a boost to his ambition to become the President of the United States, with the agreement that Hearst begins a Democratic newspaper in Chicago to compete with the Tribune, which was a Republican. Fresh from the circulation war in New York, Hearst started the Evening American.

To quickly win readers from the other newspapers, Hearst set the price for the American at a penny, half the price of the others. Other newspaper publishers blocked Hearst's evening paper from newsstands and conspired to stop businesses from advertising in the American.

Hearst hired Max Annenberg away from McCormick's Tribune to manage circulation for the American. Annenberg recruited fighters, muggers, and bouncers to join his crew. They were armed with blackjacks, brass knuckles, and guns and instructed to make sure news dealers sold the American.  Hearst began publishing a morning version of the American and hired Moe Annenberg, Max's younger brother, to manage its circulation. Morning American was renamed the Examiner.

The price of the Record-Herald was reduced to a penny to compete with the Examiner. Price wars ensued, with the other papers cutting their price to a penny to compete with Hearst's papers. With all the papers selling for the same price, violence and intimidation became the preferred methods for achieving dominance at the newsstands.

Annenberg's tactics resulted in daily battles throughout the Chicago Loop. News dealers reduced their orders of other newspapers to make room for the Americans. Newsboys were threatened into taking delivery of more newspapers than they could sell,[6] and some were taken off the street and beaten.  One newsboy was beaten in public until he was unconscious.

The circulation gangs of the Americans ordered news dealers to hide all rival papers out of sight, using violence to get their way. Streetcar riders reading papers other than the American had the papers ripped from their hands by the gangs. The political might of the newspapers encouraged the police to look the other way.

Annenberg led his thugs in terrorizing shoppers at Marshall Field's until that leading department store took ads in the American.  In 1907, the circulation gang for the Evening American hijacked a Tribune delivery truck, tossing all of its newspapers into the Chicago River.

In 1910, both the Tribune and Examiner budgeted approximately one million dollars to finance the circulation wars.  The Tribune fought back by hiring both Annenberg brothers away from Hearst. Annenberg was sued by the Examiner and American for breach of contract, but the contract was ruled void because "it was a contract to commit illegal acts." Now working for the Tribune, the Annenberg gang would park near a newsstand. When the Examiner's delivery truck arrived, it was met with gunfire. Hearst recruited a new gang of fighters using decoy delivery trucks to counter-ambush the Annenberg gang.  About sixty armed men were involved in one such battle.  Multiple fighters, news dealers, and passers-by were shot.
A Chicago Newsie


Despite daily battles in the streets, no newspapers in the city reported on them, bewildering the public.  The city's Commissioner of Public Works, Joe Patterson, thought that the circulation wars could be stopped by banning newsstands from sidewalks but resigned without taking action.  Only the Chicago Socialists reported the resumption of the circulation war in October 1910. When the attacks finally began to be mentioned in the newspapers in response to the public questioning the lack of coverage, they were attributed to a fictitious union dispute.

Little action was taken by the police or the prosecuting attorney due to the influence of the newspapers' owners. The Tribune had a hold on the State's Attorney, and Hearst controlled the chief of police.  Max Annenberg was even deputized by the sheriff.

The start of World War I brought an end to the circulation wars as the newspapers were able to rely on daily violent headlines to attract readers. The circulation gangs were disbanded.  Some of the circulation gang members, such as Mossy Enright and Charles Dion O'Banion, went on to engage in the 1920s bootleg wars,4  and O'Banion formed the notorious North Side Gang. One compromise resulting from the circulation wars was an agreement that the Tribune be displayed exclusively on the top shelf of newsstands.

The Chicago circulation wars have been described by historians as the industry's most violent period. McCormick testified in 1921 that about 27 men and newsboys had been killed between 1910 and 1912.  McCormick would deny any involvement in the violence but said that Max Annenberg proved to be the best circulation manager in town.


Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Saturday, April 29, 2023

The Murder of Labor Racketeer, Timothy “Big Tim” Murphy in 1928 Rogers Park, Chicago.

On June 26, 1928, Chicago labor racketeer Timothy D. Murphy, “Big Tim” (May 23, 1885-June 26, 1928), was shot to death at his Bungalow at 2525 West Morse Avenue in Chicago's Rogers Park community. Murphy was a Chicago mobster, labor racketeer, and U.S. mail thief who controlled several major railroads, laundry and dye workers' unions during the 1910s and early 1920s.
2525 West Morse Avenue, Rogers Park Community, Chicago, Illinois.




Timothy Murphy grew up in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. He was a towering 6' 3," slab-bodied and mostly genial boy who later boasted of selling newspapers to the famous meatpacker Jonathan Ogden Armour outside of the main offices of Armour & Company at 43rd Street and Racine Avenue. When he was older, Murphy got a job as a railroad switchman for the Chicago junction line, which would give him lifelong sympathy for the working man's plight.

Murphy was a devoted family man and had many friends. He was regarded as a great pal to just about everyone, but his dual nature made him dangerous when provoked. All the good work that he might have accomplished in labor organizing and politics was sabotaged by his associations with criminals and hoodlums ─ and by his own dabbling in crime. In 1909, he became involved with Mount Tennes, the so-called “Telegraph Gambling King” of Chicago. Tennes set up his first telegraph switchboard in a train station in Forest Park and received race results from tracks in Illinois, Kentucky and New York. Tennes had an illegal monopoly on the information. For a share of the profits, his operators sent the results to hundreds of bookie joints, gambling parlors and pool halls all over the city. Murphy’s alliance with Tennes earned him a huge amount of money but two years later, he sold Tennes out to a grand jury and walked away without a blemish on his record.

While working with Tennes, Murphy had learned the art of bribing public officials and decided to try out politics. In 1915, he ran a highly successful campaign for the state legislature, getting elected from the working-class, Irish-Catholic Fourth Ward. He used the clever slogan “Elect Big Tim Murphy ─ He’s a Cousin of Mine!” Murphy spent just one term in Springfield, returned to Chicago, and got involved in the labor rackets.

Through his friend, Maurice “Mossie” Enright, an organizer with the American Federation of Labor and a convicted murderer, he was able to organize gas station attendants, garbage collectors, and then street sweepers. Strikes, wage increases, and higher union dues followed, and Murphy got a percentage of everything. He and Enright operated from Old Quincy No. 9, a famous saloon at Randolph and LaSalle Streets, and for a time, the two men were inseparable. Eventually, the two men had a falling out over the division of proceeds from the settlement of a labor strike, and their friendship came to an end. Like Mount Tennes years before, Enright was blindsided by Murphy’s ruthless ambition.

On February 3, 1920, Enright was getting out of his car in front of his home on Garfield Boulevard when five men in another automobile pulled up and opened fire on him before he could draw his own revolver and defend himself. Enright was hit 11 times and was dead when the other car pulled away. His wife found him moments later, lying in a pool of his own blood. Tim Murphy, Michael Carozzo, the head of the Street Sweeper’s Union, and several others were arrested and questioned about the murder, but each man had an alibi and was let go.

You’re likely not surprised to learn that Enright’s murder still remains unsolved.

Murphy continued to run the three unions but was too restless and greedy to be happy with the small amount of money that was coming in. In 1920, he organized his first mail robbery. It went off without a hitch, understated and bloodless, and occurred after informants told Murphy about an overheard telephone conversation concerning money coming into the Pullman station. Two bags of cash that amounted to just over $125,000 were sent by insured, registered mail and arrived at the Illinois Central Station in Pullman on August 30. When the train pulled in, a bank messenger named Minsch was waiting on the platform. He signed for the sacks and tossed them onto a mail chute. Three boys with a cart earned a quarter each from Minsch by loading whatever he sent down the chute into his car. The boys were waiting but had trouble lifting the two bags. Two men were standing nearby, apparently waiting for someone, and saw the boys and walked over to help. The boys directed the men to take the bags to Minsch’s car, but they kept walking, tossed the two bags into the backseat of another car, and drove away. One of the men was Big Tim Murphy, and the other was his partner, Vincent Cosmano.

Unfortunately for Murphy, someone talked, and the two men were arrested and indicted by a grand jury. Murphy needed money for lawyers, so he decided to rob another train to get it.
(L-R) Tim Murphy, Fred Mader, John Miller, and Cornelius Shea during their murder trial in 1922.

 This time, he bribed a mail clerk in Indianapolis for a tip on a weekly shipment of cash and government Liberty Bonds that was sent to the Federal Reserve in Chicago. Murphy put together a crew (which included Cosmano, his long-time driver, Ed Guerin, Mike Carozzo, and two brothers, Frank and Pete Gusenberg), and they set up surveillance on the Dearborn Station at Polk Street. After they learned when the money shipment arrived, they pulled off the robbery on April 6. They escaped in a stolen Cadillac with $380,000 ($5,735,000 today).

It didn’t take long for the police to get suspicious, and the mail clerk that Murphy had bribed was the first to confess. Ed Guerin also talked because Murphy never gave him his share of the money. A judge issued a search warrant for the house where Murphy’s father-in-law lived, and postal inspectors found a trunk in the attic that was so heavy with cash and bonds that it took four men to haul it out. The bills in the trunk were brand new, and the Federal Reserve had a list of their serial numbers. The money, plus the two confessions, sent Murphy to Leavenworth for four years.
Big Tim Murphy and His Wife, Phyllis, in 1926.

Murphy was washed up when he was released from prison. But he was an eternal optimist and began devising new schemes to make money while his long-suffering wife, Florence, pestered him to find a suitable line of work.

Murphy wasn’t interested. There was too much money to be made as a criminal. He began cooking up a series of hare-brained schemes, including a banana plantation in Texas, a portable grocery store on wheels, a dog track, a travel agency, and even a plan to manufacture stop-and-go traffic lights. The latter was an idea ahead of its time, but no one was interested in what Big Tim was selling. He finally realized that the union dues of the rank and file, not his get-rich-quick schemes, made money, and he decided to take up where he had left off with labor organizing. He tried organizing tire dealers, jelly manufacturers, gasoline dealers, and garage workers, but none of them worked out.

Finally, he hatched a plan to take over the Cleaners and Dyers Union, a union with 10,000 members that was already controlled by Al Capone. Murphy stormed into the business office of the union on South Ashland Avenue with a gunman at his side and announced a “hostile takeover.” They surrendered.

Murphy’s attempt to take over a union run by Al Capone was the last mistake he ever made.

On the evening of June 26, 1928, Murphy was spending a quiet night at home in the West Rogers Park neighborhood on the far North Side. His wife was away at a church festival, and he was listening to the 1928 Democratic National Convention on the radio with his brothers-in-law, Harry and William Diggs. Around 11:00 pm., someone knocked loudly on the front door. Instead of going to the door, Murphy and Harry Diggs slipped out the side door and went around the house to see who was there. When they saw no one, Murphy walked across the front of the house and onto the lawn. Just then, gunfire broke out from a sedan that was parked on the street, and Murphy was shot down in the yard. As the car sped away, the Diggs brothers spotted four men inside, although none of them were ever identified.

Murphy was carried into the house, and as he lay dying, he tried desperately to say something to his brothers-in-law but died before he could speak. The police arrived before Florence returned from church. When she found her husband’s bloody body lying on the living floor, she collapsed on top of him and began to weep. She promised revenge: “If I knew who had killed Tim Murphy, I wouldn’t tell anybody ─ I wouldn’t wait for anybody. I’d take a gun and kill them as they killed him.”

Big Tim Murphy was laid to rest at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois, and unlike the gaudy gangster funerals of the 1920s, only a modest crowd attended the service. No gangland officials or politicians were at the service, although a few South Side and Back of the Yards characters did turn out for the wake the night before the burial. Too much had changed while Murphy had been in prison, and his hold on the Chicago rackets had slipped away in his absence. He was not a man anyone wanted to get close to, and even the tags on the funeral flowers were removed so that no outsider could know who sent them. The Catholic Church refused every form of funeral service, so an old friend who was an undertaker on the South Side recited the Lord’s Prayer, the only words spoken over his body.

It was a sad end to a man who started out with a lot of potential but greed and a failure to realize when ambition had gone too far finally cost him his life.

Ninety-five years after the shooting that claimed Big Tim's life, the bullet holes from that violent summer night are still visible in the yellow bricks of the bungalow where he once lived. They serve as the visible reminder of a man who never achieved fame in the annals of Chicago crime but left a bloody mark on it nonetheless. His murder was never solved.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.