Monday, July 7, 2025

During Prohibition, St.Paul was a gangster sanctuary! The police chief had an agreement: 1. Criminals check in to let him know they were there 2. They pay off the police department 3. They commit no crimes with in St. Paul city limits. If they did this, St. Paul police would protect them, hide them etc. Dillinger was one of the more famous people hiding out. Eventually, crime happened, and the city demanded a clean up. Even with that, a few bad players got left behind.

I don't think of the area as a hotbed now of organized crime, but it had it's moments. There was a supper club in some caves by the Mississippi called the Wabasha Caves that gangsters used. Its an event center now (cousin had his wedding reception there). The staff will show you the bullet holes from gangster shoot outs in the walls and of course there are gangster ghosts that haunt the place.

I remember a bullet filled Bonnie and Clyde car on display in our local KMart's parking lot when I was a kid!

The whole SS thing is weird but once it starts it is pretty religious. My DH gets paid the week before me because his birth day is the 8th and mine is the 16th.