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Shelton Brothers Gang
The Shelton Brothers Gang was an early Prohibition-era bootlegging gang based in southern Illinois. They were the main rivals of the famous bootlegger Charles Birger and his gang. In 1950, the '' Saturday Evening Post'' described the Sheltons as "America's Bloodiest Gang". Ancestors of the Shelton Brothers Gang trace their roots back to Ireland, under the surname "Hunter". There are still some descendants living in the St. Louis and Bloomington IL area today. History Formed by Carl (born 1888), Earl (born 1890), and Bernie "Red" Shelton (born 1898) of "Geff" Jeffersonville, Wayne County, Illinois shortly after Prohibition came into effect in 1920, the gang operated in Williamson County, Illinois, making moonshine and other illegal alcoholic beverages. They eventually dominated both gambling and liquor distribution in Little Egypt until 1926, when a former ally, gangster Charles Birger, attempted to take over the Sheltons' bootlegging operations. This began a violent gang war, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Illinois
Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Midwest. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Mississippi below its connecting Missouri River to the west and the Ohio River to the east and south with the Wabash as tributary. Southern Illinois' most populated city is Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Herrin, West Frankfort, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. Residents may also travel to amenities in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky. The region is home to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Birger
Charles "Charlie" Birger (born Shachna Itzak Birger, February 5, 1881 – April 19, 1928) was an American bootlegger during the Prohibition period in southern Illinois. Early life Charles Birger was born to a Jewish family in the Russian Empire, and emigrated to the United States as a child with his parents. Birger and his family settled in St. Louis, where, aged eight, Charlie got a job as a news boy at the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' newspaper. Later, Birger moved to the O'Fallon, Missouri, area, where he started work in a pool room. On July 5, 1901, Birger enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to Company G of the newly formed 13th Cavalry Regiment, then stationed in South Dakota. Birger was described as a good soldier and was honorably discharged on July 4, 1904, at Fort Meade, South Dakota. When he left the army, he became a cowboy. However, he eventually returned to Illinois, where he met his wife, Edna, and became a miner in the quickly expanding coal minin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced. History Some kind of limitation on the trade in alcohol can be seen in the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1772 BCE) specifically banning the selling of beer for money. It could only be bartered for barley: "If a beer seller do not receive barley as the price for beer, but if she receive money or make the beer a measure smaller than the barley measure received, they shall throw her into the water." In the early twentieth century, much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from moralistic convictions of pietistic Protestants. Prohibition movements in the West coincided with the advent of women ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines within the American middle class, with fiction, non-fiction, cartoons and features that reached two million homes every week. The magazine declined in readership through the 1960s, and in 1969 ''The Saturday Evening Post'' folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication with an emphasis on medical articles in 1971. As of the late 2000s, ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is published six times a year by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. The magazine was redesigned in 2013. History Rise ''The Saturday Evening Post'' was first published in 1821 in the same printing shop at 53 Market Street in Philadelphia where the Benjamin Franklin-founded ''Pennsy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffersonville, Illinois
Jeffersonville is a village in Wayne County, Illinois, United States. The population was 366 at the 2000 census. Although its official name is Jeffersonville, the village is known locally as Geff, with that spelling appearing on local road signs, the US Post office, and many official documents. "Geff" is pronounced as though it were spelled "Jeff". The name change is said to have been made during the 19th century by the railroad, in order to distinguish the village in Illinois from Jeffersonville, Indiana. History Burton Hawk and his brother ran a sawmill near Geff and Fairfield. William Edwin Hawk was married to Alice Mathews, also of Fairfield. His sister, Mary Adeline, was married to Dr. Dade A. Hilliard. Mellie Ann Gray was the daughter of Thomas and Rebecca Gray. She married Burton Hawk on October 31, 1894. Burton and William's parents, Eliza Jane and David Hawk ran a general store and his son Hamby ran it after David's death in December 1916. They eventually all dispersed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wayne County, Illinois
Wayne County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 16,760. Its county seat is Fairfield. It is located in the southern portion of Illinois known locally as " Little Egypt". History Wayne County was formed in 1819 out of Edwards County. It is named after Gen. "Mad Anthony" Wayne, an officer in the Revolutionary War and Northwest Indian War. File:Wayne County Illinois 1819.png, Wayne County between its 1819 creation and 1821 File:Wayne County Illinois 1821.png, Wayne County between 1821 and 1824 File:Wayne County Illinois 1824.png, Wayne County in 1824, reduced to its current size Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.2%) is water. Climate and weather In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Fairfield have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July, although a record low of was recorded in January 1994 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Williamson County, Illinois
Williamson County is a county in Southern Illinois. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 67,153. The largest city and county seat is Marion. Williamson County is included in the Carbondale-Marion, IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. This area of Southern Illinois is known locally as "Little Egypt". Williamson is in the Metro Lakeland area, southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Via the nearby intersection of Interstates 57 and 24, and Illinois Route 13, a primary east–west four-lane expressway, the city has access to the major communities of Murphysboro, Carbondale, Carterville, Herrin, Marion and Harrisburg. The Metro Lakeland area of Jackson-Williamson counties has a total of 120,000 residents. Carbondale (14 miles west), Herrin and Marion are the key urban areas in Metro Lakeland, with a combined population of more than 65,000. Over 235,000 people live within . History Williamson County was formed from Franklin County on February 28, 1839, and was named for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Egypt (region)
Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Midwest. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Mississippi below its connecting Missouri River to the west and the Ohio River to the east and south with the Wabash as tributary. Southern Illinois' most populated city is Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Herrin, West Frankfort, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. Residents may also travel to amenities in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky. The region is hom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West City, Illinois
West City is a village in Franklin County, Illinois, adjacent to the county seat of Benton. The population was 661 at the 2010 census. History In the late 19th century, West City was a small settlement adjoining Benton on the west. In the early 20th century many immigrants from Poland, Lithuania, and England settled in the West City area to work in the numerous coal mines. On March 29, 1911, 33 citizens led by John Mulkey and represented by attorney Robert Hickman presented a petition to Judge Thomas J. Layman of the Franklin County Court to incorporate West City as a village. At that time there were 350 inhabitants. An election was held on April 15, 1911, and six trustees were elected: Ed McIntire, J. J. Sanders, L. I. Tombly, Ben Fletcher, Marshall Moore, and Jack Adams. On June 1, 1911, Judge Layman declared West City to be duly and legally organized under the general laws of the State of Illinois as the Village of West City. When Congress passed the Volstead Act establish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria Metropolitan Area in Central Illinois, consisting of the counties of Fulton, Marshall, Peoria, Stark, Tazewell, and Woodford, which had a population of 402,391 in 2020. Established in 1691 by the French explorer Henri de Tonti, Peoria is the oldest permanent European settlement in Illinois according to the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. Originally known as Fort Clark, it received its current name when the County of Peoria organized in 1825. The city was named after the Peoria tribe, a member of the Illinois Confederation. On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln made his Peoria speech against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Prior to prohibition, Peoria was the center of the whiskey industry in the United States. More than 12 distilleries operated in Peor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Wortman
Frank L. "Buster" Wortman (December 4, 1904 – August 3, 1968) was an American St. Louis-area bootlegger, gambler, criminal gang leader, and a former member of the Shelton Brothers Gang during Prohibition. Wortman would eventually succeed the Sheltons, and take over St. Louis's gambling operations in southwest Illinois until his death. Early life The son of an East St. Louis fire captain, Wortman spent his early years living in north St. Louis. John Worthmann, his grandfather, worked as a proofreader for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and was killed when struck by a streetcar in 1894. Frank Wortman turned to crime in his late teens and was arrested for burglary. By 1926, he had begun running errands for the bootlegging Shelton Brothers. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Wortman was a prominent member of the gang, acting as an enforcer in southern Illinois. Time in Leavenworth In 1933, a federal agent was beaten during a raid on one of the Sheltons' distilleries, which Wortman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida and Cuba; it is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Spanning , Florida ranks 22nd in area among the 50 states, and with a population of over 21 million, it is the third-most populous. The state capital is Tallahassee, and the most populous city is Jacksonville. The Miami metropolitan area, with a population of almost 6.2 million, is the most populous urban area in Florida and the ninth-most populous in the United States; other urban conurbations with over one million people are Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Jacksonville. Various Native American groups have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
