This classic history of crime tells how Chicago's underworld earned and kept its reputation.

This is the story of the Outfit, the secretive organized crime cartel that began its reign in prohibition-era Chicago before becoming the real puppet master of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. The Outfit recounts the adventures and exploits of its bosses, Tony 'Joe Batters' Accardo (the real Godfather), Murray 'The Camel' or 'Curly' Humphreys (one of the greatest political fixers and union organizers this country has ever known), Paul 'The Waiter' Ricca, and Johnny Rosselli (the liaison between the shadowy world and the outside world). Their invisibility was their strength, and what kept their leader from ever spending a single night in jail. The Outfit bosses were the epitome of style and grace, moving effortlessly among national political figures and Hollywood studio heads-until their world started to crumble in the 1970s. With extensive research including recently released FBI files, the Chicago Crime files of entertainer Steve Allen, first-ever access to the voluminous working papers of the Kefauver Committee, original interviews with the members of the Fourth Estate who pursued the Outfit for forty years, and exclusive access to the journals of Humphrey's widow, veteran journalist Gus Russo uncovers sixty years of corruption and influence, and examines the shadow history of the United States.

This classic history of crime tells how Chicago’s underworld earned-and kept-its reputation. Recounting the lives of such notorious denizens as the original Mickey Finn, the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, and the three Car Barn Bandits, Asbury reveals life as it was lived in the criminal districts of the Levee, Hell’s Half-Acre, the Bad Lands, Little Cheyenne, Custom House Place, and the Black Hole. His description of Chicago’s infamous red light district-where the brothels boasted opulence unheard of before or since-vividly captures the wicked splendor that was Chicago. The Gangs of Chicago spans from the time “Slab Town” was settled to Prohibition days. The story of Chicago’s golden age of crime climaxes with a dramatic account of the careers of the “biggest of the Big Shots”: Big Jim Colosimo, Terrible Johnny Torrio, and the elusive Al Capone.

This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

In this important book, Virgil W. Peterson, Operating Director of the Chicago Crime Commission and for twelve years a special agent for the FBI, sums up the incredible history of crime in Chicago. He shows how the growth of crime has kept pace with the phenomenal growth of the city itself, and how politics and crime have meshed in an almost unbelievable web of corruption. Mr. Peterson, who at one time worked for more than a year exclusively on the Dillinger investigation, knows his criminals and does not hesitate to give names and facts. He was instrumental in providing much of the data which enabled the Kefauver Committee to investigate not only Chicago but also those cities whose crime is controlled by Chicago gangsters. But before lifting the lid on Chicago today, he traces the colorful—not to say lurid—picture of the past. Early in the city’s history, there was Mayor “Long John” Wentworth who, in a fit of rage, fired the entire police force. And the infamous “Bathhouse John” Coughlin who with “Hinky Dink” Kenna ran Chicago’s huge First Ward for more than fifty years, and who was once imported to New York to impress the Tammany forces. And Minna and Ada Everleigh who ran the famous Everleigh House in the red-light district. And, of course, there was the whole Capone crowd: Johnny Torrio who shot his boss, Big Jim Colosimo, to gain control of the rackets; Dion O’Bannion, the florist who made corpses and then provided the funeral decorations, and many, many others. Here, too, is the true story of the Kelly-Nash machine—one of the most efficiently corrupt political organizations Chicago has ever known. And the story of how the Chicago crime network now reaches high into the Federal government. Mr. Peterson also gives the complete story of the Kefauver crime investigation in Chicago. And finally the author presents his program for the elimination of corruption in Chicago and throughout the country.

The author of Haunted Illinois visits the criminal history of the Windy City neighborhood where mobsters and murderers plied their trades. In 1929, Chicago gangster Al Capone arranged a special St. Valentine’s Day delivery for his favorite arch enemies: a massacre. Seven North Side mobsters were left dead. Yet random killings and bizarre murders were not unfamiliar in Chicago. Tales of the city’s most violent and puzzling murders make this gripping work truly hair-raising: a deranged stalker kills his love object and then himself; a sausage maker uses the tools of his trade to rid himself of his wife; and a meticulous serial killer cleans his dead victim’s wounds before taping them closed. Through accounts dripping with mystery, gory details and suspense, Troy Taylor brilliantly tells the twisted history of Chicago’s North Side. Includes photos!