41 Facts About Dean O'Banion

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.

Dean O'Banion led the North Side Gang until 1924, when he was shot and killed, reportedly by Frankie Yale, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi.

Dean O'Banion was born to Irish Catholic parents in the small town of Maroa in Central Illinois.

An early nickname for Dean O'Banion was "Gimpy" due to his short left leg, but few people had enough nerve to call him that.

In 1909, Dean O'Banion was arrested first for safecracking and then for assault.

Dean O'Banion worked as a waiter at McGovern's Liberty Inn, where each evening he would delight patrons with his beautiful Irish tenor voice as his pals were picking pockets in the coatroom.

In December 1919, shortly before Prohibition came into effect, Dean O'Banion was walking down Chicago Street when he came across a parked liquor truck.

Dean O'Banion took a roll of nickels out of his pocket, approached the driver and knocked him out.

Dean O'Banion sold the whiskey in the back to saloon keepers for a total of $15,000.

Dean O'Banion arranged for beer suppliers in Canada to start shipments immediately, and struck deals with whiskey and gin distributors.

Dean O'Banion pioneered Chicago's first liquor hijacking on December 19,1921.

The Dean O'Banion mob, known as the North Side Gang, now ruled the North Side and the Gold Coast, the wealthy area of Chicago situated on the northern lakefront of Lake Michigan.

At the height of his power, Dean O'Banion was supposedly making about $40 million in 3 years from liquor.

In 1921, Dean O'Banion married Viola Kaniff and bought an interest in William Schofield's flower shop in the River North area, near the corner of West Chicago Avenue and North State Street.

Dean O'Banion needed a legitimate front for his criminal operations; in addition, he was fond of flowers and was an excellent arranger.

Dean O'Banion accepted the agreement and was given control of the North Side, including the desirable Gold Coast.

Dean O'Banion lived with Torrio's deal for about three years before becoming dissatisfied with it.

Since a recent election in neighboring Cicero, Illinois, the city had become a gold mine for the South Siders and Dean O'Banion wanted a cut of it.

The enterprising Dean O'Banion then convinced a number of speakeasies in other Chicago territories to move to his strip in Cicero.

Dean O'Banion complained about the Gennas to Torrio, but Torrio did nothing.

Not one to back down, Dean O'Banion started hijacking Genna liquor shipments.

Dean O'Banion was contacted by O'Banion, who agreed to help him.

Dean O'Banion told Duffy to meet him at the Four Deuces, a South Wabash club run by the Torrio-Capone organization.

At that point, Dean O'Banion stood behind the unsuspecting Duffy and shot him in the back of the head.

Dean O'Banion then shot Duffy twice more before dumping his body in the snowbank.

Police think that Dean O'Banion killed Duffy because he wanted to avoid a highly publicized investigation into the murder of Duffy's wife.

In May, 1924, Dean O'Banion learned that the police were planning to raid the brewery on a particular night.

Dean O'Banion got off easily because, unlike Torrio, he had no previous Prohibition-related arrests.

Dean O'Banion refused to return the money Torrio had given him in the deal.

Dean O'Banion had lost the brewery and $500,000 in cash, had been indicted and had been humiliated.

Nevertheless, Torrio was willing to overlook this insult in order to maintain peace in the Chicago underworld, until Dean O'Banion himself made the situation irretrievable later that year.

Dean O'Banion was murdered soon after his return to Chicago, before he had a chance to use his new Thompsons on any of his enemies.

On November 3,1924, Dean O'Banion made a telephone call to arch-rival Angelo Genna that became heated.

Dean O'Banion, instead, spoke to Genna on the telephone and abusively demanded that he pay his debt within a week.

Since Dean O'Banion was a major organized crime figure, the Archdiocese of Chicago denied him burial in consecrated ground.

Dean O'Banion received a lavish funeral, much larger than the Merlo funeral the day before.

Dean O'Banion was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, west of Chicago.

Dean O'Banion was originally interred in unconsecrated ground, but his family persevered and he was later reburied in consecrated ground elsewhere in the cemetery.

The Dean O'Banion killing sparked a brutal five-year gang war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminated in the killing of seven North Side gang members in the St Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929.

Seasons 3 and 4 of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire featured a fictional version of Dean O'Banion, portrayed by Arron Shiver.

Dean O'Banion appears as a playable character in the strategy video game Empire of Sin published in 2020 by Romero Games and Paradox Interactive.