The Chicago Outfit and The Prohibition Era

The mafia in Chicago, by and large recognized as the "Outfit", has a long, quite profitable history. It has been in charge of organized crime in the immediate city and all of its surrounding area since around the end of Prohibition.

The history of the Outfit begins with James "Big Jim" Colosimo. Before him, crime in Chicago was small. One group controlled the individual labor unions, the other set was active in gambling side and still another cluster was involved in the prostitution ring. From the beginning of his rule in 1890s, Colosimo, who was involved everything. He became Chicago's most influential gangster during the time before Prohibition. He had his set of political relations. Whilst his territory grew, so did the band. By the mid-1910s Colosimo was in charge of Chicago's largest and strongest groups of criminals. Unlike the other mafias, Colismo's group was a multi-ethnic assembly. The gang is known to be the actual antecedent of the Capone gang and the entire subsequent Outfit. Al Capone himself came to Chicago to join Colosimo and try to escape his troubles in Brooklyn,

Colosimo appeared to be hesitant to pursue the rich opportunities in the liquor trade that the Prohibition Era offered and when he returned from his honeymoon in 1920 he was shot and killed in his café... The most probable suspect was the gangster Frankie Yale under contract from Colosimo's associate John Torrio.

Torrio took over what Colosimo had built and used it as the basis for a bootlegging dominion. He is recognized with calling together the other major local gangs and making a cartel that separated up the liquor business in the city. This way there would be stability and prosperity in bootlegging. Each gang obtained an area which it had the sole right in which to sell beer and liquor.

Torrio extended his activity into the suburbs and later he took over Cicero with Al Capone leading the way. Torrio claimed the largest area in the cartel arrangement, covering the South Side and a range of many other suburbs south and west of the city.

However, like all cartel agreements it encountered problems. The first was that the people not associated with group wanted to get a piece of this highly profitable money machine. The first to cause a stir in the system was "Spike" O'Donnell who tried to break into the Sheldon and Saltis-McErlane provinces in 1923. This issue was confronted by group of Torrio's from the "Combination" which shot up the O'Donnell boys until they drew back to where they came.

The second predicament was a bit more difficult to handle. The group's profits could be the larger if everyone stuck to the agreement and stayed in their area. However, many gangs looking to boost its profits do so by dishonoring the agreement and tried to enter the territory of its neighboring gang. The biggest conflict was between the Gennas and the O'Banion gang which in turn led to the killing of O'Banion in November 1924; this seems to be the beginning of the Prohibition Era gang wars.

Torrio, himself shot by avenging North Side gunmen in January 1925, left Chicago in March of that year. This is where the infamous Al Capone took over Chicago's largest gang the shooting war. The first ones to yield were the Gennas, which lost their leadership to the North Siders under Hymie Weiss that same year. The Gennas' business was quickly taken over by Capone who had his man Tony Lombardo put in as Union president. Then in 1926 the West Side O'Donnells and the Capone mob clashed over liquor sales in Cicero, with the West Siders quickly submitting and merging with the Capone gang. As time went on, the Sheldon gang became linked with Al Capone as well.

Nevertheless, the wars continued for several years. Later on after with the leaders of the North Siders were killed, George "Bugs" Moran became leader of the gang and he became allies with other foe of Capone's. In terms of the number of killings, the gang wars in Chicago reached their height in 1929 with the St. Valentine's Day Massacres.

The death of six Morans men and the optometrist, Dr. Schwimmer in the garage on North Clark Street, along with the killing of Zuta and Joe Aiello by Capone's henchmen in 1930, was followed by the Capone finally taking over of the North Side in 1931. Not long after Al Capone moved in on Moran's allies. It was at this point that the gang wars were over, with Capone taking charge of Chicago and all the vicinities.

Capone's gang started moving heavily into other rackets with the end of the Prohibition Era looming in the near future. These rackets included labor unions, gambling and business racketeering, this gave Capone's gang tremendous political weight. Finally the violence in Chicago during the 1920s and Capon's, attention seeking style made him a primary target for the law enforcement agencies. Since local authorities would not move in against Capone and his gang, the federal government did, launching a two branched offensive attack. One of the facets was an attack on Capone's breweries by then unknown, Eliot Ness and his gang of officers. The second wave came as an intensive investigation of Capone's income and whether he had evaded his income taxes. Capone was eventually convicted of income tax evasion in October of 1931, after IRS agents put together a solid case against him. Ironically this was also during the time that Capone was winning the gang wars. Capone boarded a train for the U. S. Penitentiary in Atlanta in May of 1932, just as Frank Nitti who was formerly the second in command behind Capone, returned from prison. Nitti, eventually replaced Capone at the top as the demise of Prohibition loomed and the end of all the glitter and glamour surrounding the Chicago Outfit.

Although, it still exists, the mystique that was obtained by The Outfit during this era has never been achieved again. This is why the Chicago Mafia (The Outfit) will always be remembered as the most prominent cartel of the Prohibition Era.