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Pistol Pete’s Payback and Other Historic Vengeances

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 31 min

World War II - Quisling — Quisling with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Cotton Boll Conspiracy

25. The Gangster Who Scared Al Capone

Polish-born Hymie Weiss (1898 – 1926) is known as the only man who scared Al Capone. Weiss grew up in Chicago’s North Side, where he took to a life of crime in his early teens. He eventually teamed up with George “Bugs” Moran and Dean O’Banion to form the North Side Gang, which came to dominate crime in North Chicago during Prohibition.

There was fierce competition with the Chicago Outfit and its rising star, Al Capone, over the illegal alcohol market. The competition turned violent, and the spiraling cycle of payback and counter payback eventually led to the killing of the North Side Gang’s boss, O’Banion, in 1924. Weiss succeeded him, and vowed revenge.

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.