First submachine gun attack of the beer wars (McErlane on Spike O'Donnell) was a Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts engagement fought in Illinois, 1925.
A drive-by attack on South Side beer runner Edward 'Spike' O'Donnell at Sixty-third and Western marked what is generally cited as the first use of a Thompson submachine gun in the Chicago gang wars. Gunman Frank McErlane, allied with Joe Saltis against the O'Donnell and Ralph Sheldon interests, opened fire from a passing car; O'Donnell dropped and survived as bullets stitched the storefront. The introduction of the portable automatic weapon transformed the South Side beer war and, soon after, gangland killing across the country, giving small crews battlefield firepower for street ambushes. McErlane's Saltis faction and its rivals traded further Thompson attacks over the following months. The episode is a landmark in the mechanization of Prohibition-era violence, foreshadowing the mass shootings that would culminate in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Approximate location. The nearest recorded settlement is shown; the exact site is unrecorded.
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