Chicago's war for the beer trade
No city came to symbolise the violence of Prohibition more than Chicago. When national Prohibition took effect in 1920, control of the city's illegal beer and liquor supply became worth a fortune, and rival gangs fought openly to hold it. On one side stood the North Side Gang, largely Irish and Polish and rooted in the neighborhoods north of the Chicago River. On the other stood the South Side outfit built by Johnny Torrio and inherited by Al Capone, later known as the Chicago Outfit. Their struggle over breweries, distribution, and territory turned ordinary streets into ambush sites and made the drive-by shooting a familiar feature of the decade.
From O'Banion to the massacre
The war sharpened after the North Side leader Dean O'Banion was shot dead in his flower shop in 1924, a killing widely blamed on the Torrio and Capone faction. His successors, among them Hymie Weiss and Bugs Moran, struck back repeatedly, including a daylight motorcade attack on Capone's headquarters in Cicero. The bloodletting reached its notorious climax on 14 February 1929 with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven men connected to Moran's gang were lined up against a garage wall and shot dead by killers, some dressed as police. The massacre shocked the nation and drew federal attention to Capone, whose empire would soon be broken not by rivals but by a conviction for tax evasion.
Written by Aubrey Research from North Side Gang on Wikipedia, cited as a reference and not reproduced.
Where these engagements were fought
All 15 are placed on the map. Select a marker to see the engagement.
Red markers are surveyed battlefields with a mapped boundary; navy markers are point-located engagements. Select a marker to open its page.
Documented engagements
| Engagement | State | Year | Forces or losses |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Valentine's Day Massacre | IL | 1929 | 7 killed |
| Assassination of Dion O'Banion | IL | 1924 | O'Banion killed by 3 gunmen in his flower shop |
| Ambush of Johnny Torrio | IL | 1925 | Torrio gravely wounded; survived |
| Assassination of Samuzzo 'Samoots' Amatuna | IL | 1925 | Amatuna shot; died of wounds |
| Genna gang and police gun battle; death of Mike Genna | IL | 1925 | Mike Genna + 2 police (Olson, Walsh) killed |
| First submachine gun attack of the beer wars (McErlane on Spike O'Donnell) | IL | 1925 | Spike O'Donnell survived; first Thompson use |
| Murder of Tony Genna | IL | 1925 | Tony Genna killed |
| Murder of Angelo Genna | IL | 1925 | Angelo Genna killed |
| Machine-gun killing of William McSwiggin at Cicero | IL | 1926 | McSwiggin, Doherty, Duffy killed |
| Assassination of Hymie Weiss | IL | 1926 | Weiss and Patrick Murray killed |
| Hawthorne Inn motorcade attack | IL | 1926 | ~1,000 rounds fired; Capone unhurt |
| Assassination of Antonio Lombardo | IL | 1928 | Lombardo killed in downtown crowd |
Plus 3 further documented engagements in the Chicago Beer Wars record.
Engagements and locations are compiled from published sources: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Chronicling America (Library of Congress historic newspapers) (public domain).