The beer wars beyond Chicago and New York
Prohibition set off gang wars in cities across the industrial heartland and the coasts, wherever the illegal liquor trade was rich enough to fight over. Each city produced its own combatants and its own pattern of violence, but the shape was the same everywhere: rival organizations competing for breweries, smuggling routes, the sugar and alcohol used to make bootleg spirits, and the protection rackets that grew around them. From Detroit's river crossings to the ports of New England, the years of the ban were marked by ambushes, bombings, and killings as these groups rose, merged, and destroyed one another.
A map of local conflicts
In Detroit the largely Jewish Purple Gang ran the liquor trade and warred with rivals before being eclipsed by the Italian organization. Cleveland saw a corn-sugar war among families supplying bootleggers, including the Lonardo and Porrello factions. St. Louis pitted Egan's Rats against the Hogan Gang in a running feud, while Kansas City's rackets grew under a corrupt political machine and produced the 1933 Union Station shooting. Toledo, Boston, Newark, and Milwaukee each had their own crews fighting for the same trade, from Toledo's bootlegging factions to the machine of Newark's Longy Zwillman. Together these local wars showed that the violence of Prohibition was a national condition, not a Chicago peculiarity.
Written by Aubrey Research from American Mafia on Wikipedia, cited as a reference and not reproduced.
Where these engagements were fought
All 19 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Union Station Massacre | MO | 1933 | 4 officers + prisoner Nash killed |
| Murder of William 'Willie' Egan | MO | 1921 | Willie Egan shot at his saloon |
| Killing of Luke Kennedy (Egan-Hogan retaliation) | MO | 1922 | Kennedy killed in reprisal |
| Killing of Willie Crowe, 'seventh victim' of the St. Louis war | MO | 1923 | Crowe killed; reported 7th victim |
| Killing of Jacob Mackler and attacks on the Hogan gang | MO | 1923 | Mackler killed; Hogan home attacked |
| Milaflores Massacre | MI | 1927 | 3 killed (Wright, Bloom, Cohen) |
| Cleaners and Dyers War | MI | 1927 | Bombings, beatings, several killings |
| Murder of the Lonardo brothers | OH | 1927 | Joe and John Lonardo killed |
| Porrello family reprisal killings | OH | 1930 | Further Porrello killings and woundings |
| Murder of Joseph Porrello | OH | 1930 | Porrello and bodyguard Tilocco killed |
| Killing of Jack Zuta | WI | 1930 | Zuta killed by ~7 gunmen |
| Shooting of Police Inspector Henry Garvin (Detroit River Gang) | MI | 1930 | Inspector Garvin shot and wounded |
Plus 7 further documented engagements in the Prohibition City Wars record.
By state
Engagements and locations are compiled from published sources: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Chronicling America (Library of Congress historic newspapers) (public domain).