Led by Abe Bernstein, the Purple Gang was a mob of bootleggers and hijackers who operated out of Detroit, Michigan in the 1920s. This group of mostly young Jewish immigrants got its start in the Hasting Street neighborhood known as Paradise Valley in Detroit’s Lower East Side. Many of the core members went to school together and as boys, became thieves and pickpockets in an area called the Eastern Market close to their school. As they got older, their crimes got bigger and they soon began to commit armed robbery, loan sharking, and extortion under the mentorship of older neighborhood gangsters.

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1920s Book Covers

By the 1920’s Detroit had become a major port for running and distributing alcohol products from Canada during Prohibition.

They operated between Detroit and Chicago, and would meet behind the Bohm Theatre or in secret places in houses of Albion, a small town halfway between the two points. The gang supposedly received their name during a conversation between two Detroit market owners, each of them gang victims. One owner made the comment: “They’re rotten, purple like the color of bad meat.”

Perhaps the most ruthless bootleggers of their time, they may have killed over 500 members of rival bootlegging gangs during Detroit’s bootleg wars.

1920s DIY dress ideas – How to put together 1920s inspired outfits from new or used clothing. Sew a 1920s dress in any size from the One Hour Dress pattern (it will take at least 2 hours to make). How to Accessorize a 1920s dress – Ideas to make a basic dress more 1920s. Belts, sashes, trim, wraps, etc. Pittsburgh in the 1920s and ’30s was a crowded, dirty place. The city was home 669,000 people, making it the 10th largest metropolis in the United States in 1930 (today, the city ranks 61st with a populations of slightly more than 300,000). Train sheds, railroad tracks and industrial facilities jammed what is now tree-filled Point State Park.

Bootlegging netted the Purple Gang millions of dollars, but the mob was also involved in extortion, hijacking, and jewelry thefts. After the repeal of Prohibition in the 1930s, the Purple Gang members joined the growing national crime syndicate that was replacing the old school mafia leadership, fondly known as the Mustache Petes.

The Purple Gang also attempted to run gambling rings in Detroit, especially among the African American population. Run by Julius Horowitz, the son of the sugar supplier to the breweries, and a one-legged black gangster wanted in the South for murder, the operation was successful until the gamblers learned that the Purple Gang had been using loaded dice and other tricks to keep it profitable. A small riot followed from which Horowitz escaped but the black gangster was believed killed.

A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds Contents 1 History. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867. Her parents, Owen and Minerva, were Louisiana sharecroppers who had been born into slavery.Sarah, their fifth child, was the first. By the 1920s racing had reached its peak and there were more than 300 racetracks in the U.S. In addition to thousand of 'pool halls,' or off-track betting facilities, which were connected to the.

The Purple Gang was exceptionally violent, constantly at war with other gangs and with each other. Newspapers would often carry stories of gang murders on both sides of their conflicts, which were constant during the gang’s existence. Too many openly violent crimes caused a string of convictions of Purple Gang members, while the intra-gang violence between different gang members damaged the gang’s organization and its abilities to control its turf.

The Purples ruled the Detroit underworld for approximately five years from 1927 to 1932 and had almost complete immunity from police interference as witnesses to crimes were terrified of testifying against any criminal identified as a Purple Gangster.

However, jealousies, egos, and intra-gang quarrels would eventually cause the Purple Gang to self-destruct. In 1931 an intra-gang dispute ended in the murder of three Purples by members of their own gang. The three men had violated underworld code by operating outside the territory allotted to them by the Purple Gang leadership. Three members of the “Little Jewish Navy,” a group of Purples who owned several boats and participated in rum-running as well as hijacking, decided they would break away from the gang and become an underworld power themselves. This was the beginning of the end for the Purple Gang.

The three men, Hymie Paul, Isadore Sutker, aka Joe Sutker, and Joe Lebowitz, were invited to a peace conference with Purple Gang leaders on September 16, 1931. However, after a brief discussion, the three unarmed men were shot to death.

The Purple Gang smuggling in liquor from Canada.

A bookie named Sol Levine, who had transported the three men to the fatal meeting, was arrested soon afterward and was quickly frightened into becoming a State’s witness.

1940s Bookends

Levine’s testimony was devastating and three of the four Purples involved in the incident were quickly arrested. Irving Milberg, Harry Keywell, and Raymond Bernstein, three high ranking Purple Gang members, were convicted of first-degree murder and sent to prison for life. Although the Purple Gang remained a power in the Detroit underworld until 1935, long prison sentences and intra-gang quarrels eventually destroyed the gang’s manpower.

The Purple Gang were considered suspects in the case of the Lindbergh baby. The Purple Gang also used big grass lots all over Michigan for planting drugs which they planned on selling in Detroit.

The predecessors of Detroit’s modern-day Mafia family simply stepped in and filled the void once the Purple Gang self-destructed.

Compiled by Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated January 2020.

Also See:

Primary Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

1920s Cookie Recipes

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1920s Cookies

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