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A West Virginia Town Applied For Soviet Foreign Aid, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan February 21, 2020 33 min

Vulcan - McDowell County — Vulcan miners in 1919. The Sangha Kommune

8. “The Fox” Who Paved the Way For Al Capone

Johnny Torrio, AKA “The Fox” and “Papa Johnny” (1882 – 1957), is best known as the founder of the Chicago Outfit – the criminal empire inherited and made infamous by his protege and successor, Al Capone. Torrio started his criminal career in an NYC street gang, became its leader, and steadily worked his way up the criminal world’s ranks with gambling and loan sharking. He eventually caught the eye of Paul Kelly, leader of the Five Points Gang, who took him on as a protege.

Torrio was invited to Chicago by his aunt’s husband, “Big Jim” Colosimo, who owned over a hundred brothels, to deal with extortionists preying on his businesses. Torrio did, and stayed on as Colosimo’s right hand and muscle. When Prohibition began in January of 1920, Torrio recognized the opportunity for fabulous riches to be made in making alcohol and selling it at a steep markup, now that it was illegal.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.