 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(January 2023) |
The Sheldon Gang was a Chicago criminal gang during the early years of Prohibition known for being the main rivals of the Saltis-McErlane Gang and the Southside O'Donnell Brothers. The gang's primary activities included bootlegging and hijacking of trucks and alcohol shipments.
The gang was founded by Ralph Sheldon in the months following the passage of the Volstead Act and it quickly became one of major liquor suppliers in Chicago's Southwest Side as well as a main supplier to Al Capone. The gang maintained an uneasy truce with the other rival gangs, until 1923, when a brief gang war broke out between the Sheldon Gang and the Southside O'Donnells until O'Donnell leader Edward O'Donnell was forced to leave Chicago after being severely wounded, by Frank McErlane, during a drive-by shooting on September 25, 1925.
Once the O'Donnell's were eliminated, the Saltis-McErlane Gang, former allies of the Sheldon Gang, continued attacking the Sheldon Gang and by April of the following year the gang had lost their two top distributors, Frank DeLaurentis and John Tucillo. In October, a general amnesty had been ordered between Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and Bugs Moran's North Side Gang. However on December 30 Sheldon Gang member Hillory Clements was killed by the Saltis-McErlane Gang and in retaliation the Sheldon Gang killed Saltis gunmen Charlie Hubacek and Frank Koncil on March 11, 1927.
Joe Saltis soon went to Capone who, in exchange for a large percentage of his profits, would negotiate peace between the two. During the later years of Prohibition the Sheldon Gang was suspected of supplying liquor to Capone rival Bugs Moran's North Side Gang. In the closing days of Prohibition and with the emergence of Lucky Luciano's National Crime Syndicate the Sheldon Gang, like most of the remaining bootlegging gangs, were absorbed into the syndicate by 1932.
Sometime in the 1930s, the Sheldons dropped a bomb from an airplane into an ice cream store, in Creve Coeur, Illinois.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone, 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.
George Clarence "Bugs" Moran was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned down and killed in a warehouse in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929, supposedly on the orders of his rival Al Capone.
John Donato Torrio was an Italian born-American mobster who helped build the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s later inherited by his protégé Al Capone. Torrio proposed a National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and later became an adviser to Lucky Luciano and his Luciano crime family.
Earl J. "Hymie" Weiss, was a Polish-American mob boss who became a leader of the Prohibition-era North Side Gang and a bitter rival of Al Capone. He was known as "the only man Al Capone feared".
Louis "Two Gun" Alterie, born Leland A. Varain, and aka "Diamond Jack Alterie", was a Californian who became a notorious hitman for the Chicago North Side Gang during the early years of Prohibition.
Ragen's Colts was a chiefly Irish street gang which dominated the Chicago underworld during the early twentieth century. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the gang became part of the Chicago Outfit under Al Capone.
The North Side Gang, also known as the North Side Mob, was an Irish-Polish-American criminal organization within Chicago during the Prohibition era from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s. It was the principal rival of the South Side Gang, also known as the Chicago Outfit, the crime syndicate of Italian-Americans Johnny Torrio and Al Capone.
The Atlantic City Conference held between 13–16 May 1929 was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. It is considered by most crime historians to be the earliest organized crime summit held in the US. The conference had a major impact on the future direction of the criminal underworld and it held more importance and significance than the Havana Conference of 1946 and the Apalachin meeting of 1957. It also represented the first concrete move toward a National Crime Syndicate.
Joseph Francis Saltis, known as "Polack Joe", was an American Prohibition gangster who, with Frank McErlane, operated an illegal bootlegging racket in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois until his territory was seized by Al Capone and he fled to Wisconsin.
Abe Bernstein was a Detroit-based Jewish-American organized crime figure and leader of the infamous Prohibition-era Purple Gang.
Frank McErlane (1894–1932) was a Prohibition-era Irish American gangster. He led the Saltis-McErlane Gang, allied with the Johnny Torrio-Al Capone Gang, against rival bootleggers, the Southside O'Donnell Brothers. He is credited with introducing the Thompson submachine gun to Chicago's underworld. The Illinois Crime Survey called him "the most brutal gunman who ever pulled a trigger in Chicago."
Capone is a 1975 Canadian-American biographical crime film directed by Steve Carver, written by Howard Browne, and starring Ben Gazzara, Harry Guardino, Susan Blakely, John Cassavetes, and Sylvester Stallone in an early film appearance. The film is a biography of the infamous Al Capone.
Charles Dean O'Banion was an American mobster who was the main rival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone during the brutal Chicago bootlegging wars of the 1920s. The newspapers of his day made him better known as Dion O'Banion, although he never went by that first name. He led the North Side Gang until 1924, when he was shot and killed, reportedly by Frankie Yale, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi.
Barker Lake Golf Course is a golf course that was built in the 1920s by the early prohibition gangster Joseph Saltis, who along with legendary mobsters Al Capone and Hymie Weiss, controlled Chicago's bootlegging business. Barker Lake Golf Course is located in Winter, Wisconsin, and is one of the oldest courses in the northern Wisconsin region, being open almost 90 years. It is still open to the public, and the clubhouse serves as a museum containing Joe Saltis memorabilia that his youngest son donated.