Danny Hogan
"Dapper" Danny Hogan (c. 1880 - December 4, 1928) was an Irish-American organized crime figure, political fixer, and the boss of Saint Paul, Minnesota's Irish Mob both before and during Prohibition. Following Hogan's 1928 murder by car bomb, his former position as leader of organized crime in St. Paul was taken over by Lithuanian Jewish gangster and former Hogan associate Harry Sawyer and his ally, corrupt police chief Big Tom Brown. They did not share Hogan's distaste for unnecessary violence. Their collusion with both the Dillinger and Barker-Karpis Gangs resulted in some of the most infamous crimes of the Depression era and in the rise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover. Early life According to his death certificate, Daniel Hogan was born c. 1880 to Irish Catholic parents in California. Hogan was first arrested in Los Angeles for "room prowling" in 1905 and accordingly served a sentence at San Quentin. He went on to also serve prison terms in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin for bank robbery and stealing furs. Criminal career in Saint Paul Around 1909, Hogan permanently settled in Saint Paul, where, "he discovered his true calling - organizing major crimes from the sanctuary of St. Paul, selecting the criminal personnel for the job, and laundering stolen merchandise, particularly hard-to-fence Government bonds." During the same era, Hogan's close ally, mobbed up St. Paul Police Chief John O'Connor, allowed criminals and fugitives to operate in the city as long as they checked in with Hogan, paid a small bribe, and promised not to kill, kidnap, rape, or rob within the city limits. Even though Hogan himself often skirted this rule, according to Paul Maccabee, "Hogan's robberies, unlike those of Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, and other better-known bandits, nearly always reaped substantial profits and seldom resulted in gunplay." Hogan became a fixer so closely connected to the Democratic Party political machine that ran St. Paul that police officers not only feared him, but actively protected his organization. The U.S. Department of Justice made repeated attempts to prosecute him, but always failed. Hogan also acted as an "ambassador" for Chief O'Connor and visiting mobsters from the National Crime Syndicate. Hogan himself owned the Green Lantern saloon on Wabasha Street, Saint Paul, which was also an illegal gambling casino, and became a speakeasy during Prohibition. Hogan was involved in planning armed robberies in the towns surrounding the Twin Cities, and also in money laundering and casino gambling in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. In an interview with Paul Maccabee, retired journalist Fred Heaberlin recalled, "Danny Hogan... today he'd probably be called a Godfather, sort of a father figure for hoods who were climbing the world of hoodlumism." In a 1927 memo, the U.S. Justice Department alleged, "Hogan is a nationally know character as a 'fence' for the disposal of stolen property and undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of dollars of stolen stamps and bonds and other valuable property have come into his hands... He is doubtless one of the most