Prohibition
In 1921, Dean O'Banion married Viola Kaniff and bought an interest in William Schofield's River North flower shop, near the corner of West Chicago Avenue and North State Street. O'Banion needed a legitimate front for his bootlegging operation. In addition, he was fond of flowers and was an excellent arranger.
Schofield's became the florist of choice for many funerals.
The shop happened to be directly across the street from Holy Name Cathedral, where O'Banion and Weiss attended Mass. The rooms above Schofield's were used as the headquarters for the North Side Gang which controlled the bootlegging operations in what would later be called River North and the Gold Coast area of Chicago.
On the morning of November 10, 1924, O'Banion was clipping chrysanthemums in Schofield's back room.
Frankie Yale entered the shop with Torrio and Capone gunmen John Scalise and Albert Anselmi.
When O'Banion attempted to greet Yale with a handshake, Yale clasped O'Banion's hand in a death grip. At the same time, Scalise and Anselmi fired two bullets into O'Banion's chest, two in his cheeks, and two in his throat and Dean O'Banion died instantly.
Read more about this topic: River North Gallery District, Near North Side, Chicago
Famous quotes containing the word prohibition:
“He had never learned to live without delight. And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry. Theoretically he knew that life is possible, may be even pleasant, without joy, without passionate griefs. But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)