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When you think of the most famous mobsters in American history you might think of names
like John Dillinger or Al Capone, and think of mob cities like New York and Chicago and
Las Vegas. But the Quad Cities, along a turn the Mississippi River along the Illinois Iowa border,
probably don't come first to mind and yet in many ways John Looney, the Quad Cities Vice Lord,
was the prototype for an American Mob Boss and at one time he ruled a very vast empire
of bootlegging brothels and protection rackets. Various types of organized crime started appearing
in the United States primarily among immigrant communities at the end of the 19th century,
but the rise of organized crime in the U.S was largely associated with the prohibition of alcohol
with passage of the 18th amendment in 1919. While it was originally assumed that prohibition of
alcohol would reduce crime, attempts to enforce prohibition resulted in the rise of criminal
gangs, who became more sophisticated and more violent as they commanded federal agents and
other criminal organizations to control the lucrative bootlegging of illegal alcohol. This
would give rise to vast organizations, eventually spanning the nation, and powerful crime bosses who
would control and sometimes fight over territory. Because of the relationship between alcohol and
other vice, these games would often control other criminal activities like gambling, prostitution,
and protection rackets and to protect those networks they would often subvert police and
elected officials. Perhaps the most famous of the Prohibition era bosses was Alphonse Gabriel
Capone, who controlled a major crime organization in Chicago. Because of his many donations to
charity and his flamboyant personality, Capone was seen more as a national celebrity than a criminal
at least until the public's mind was turned by the violence of his activities. The Capone who took
over mobster Johnny Torrio's organization in 1925 was by no means the first mob boss of his kind,
well-known, connected, controlling vice over vast swaths of territory using violence and yet still
keeping the public's attention. Now if there was a prototype for the Prohibition era Mob Boss,
it was arguably a man whose territory was some hundred sixty miles from Capone's Chicago.
The area today known as the Quad Cities was originally populated by an Algonquian speaking
tribe called the Sauk. Sauk tribal leader Black Hawk, who led the Sauk in a conflict over land in
1832 that was called the Black Hawk War, was born there. After Black Hawk was defeated and the land
ceded, communities grew along the riverbanks at the Illinois Iowa border, where a short bend has
the Mississippi River running east to west. The Erie was the important point for riverboat trade
and so grew in the area of industrialization. In 1848 John Deere, who had invented the first
commercially successful steel plow, moved his manufacturing business there. In 1856 the first
railroad bridge across the Mississippi River was built there, and a lawsuit concerning that
bridge went all the way to the US Supreme Court where it built the reputation of a young lawyer,
named Abraham Lincoln. By the turn of the 20th century, the cities of Rock Island and Moline
in Illinois and Davenport across the river in Iowa were calling themselves the tri-cities
and had a combined population over 120,000, and the City of East Moline was growing enough that
the name would soon change to the Quad Cities. Patrick John Looney, known as Paddy John to his
friends, was born in the small town of Ottawa Illinois in between the Quad Cities in Chicago
in 1865 to Irish immigrant parents. He started working at a young age, as was common at the
time and worked as a railroad telegrapher, that job moved him to the town of Rock Island where
he became interested in the law and studied for the bar passing the exam at the age of
23. By most accounts he was not very successful in the courtroom, but practicing law did put him
in contact with the criminal element of the Quad Cities, many of whom would end up owing him as
they could not afford their legal fees. Looney first ran afoul of the law in 1897 when he and
his law partner were implicated in a scheme to defraud the city in the building of a storm drain,
selling, it was claimed, inferior materials. While there were eventually convictions in the case they
were overturned on appeal, the case was important in that it taught Looney that there was money to
be made in graft, and the connections that he made in the deal offered him an opportunity to get into
the field, where a criminal could really thrive, in Illinois politics. Looney became a leading
figure in the local Democratic Party using Machine Party tactics that eventually put him at odds with
the local Democratic newspaper, The Argus, a rivalry that would last throughout his career.
When he ran for state House of Representatives and lost, he blamed the editorials that had been
written in the Argus. He acquired a printing press in 1895 and started his own paper,
The Rock Island News, billed as “The only truthful paper in Rock Island”. It turned
out that journalism provided as much opportunity for vice as politics. The newspaper was a scandal
sheet that he used to attack his enemies and to blackmail people, authorities were cowed as his
paper could destroy the career with a lie. Even as he carried on the war of words with the Argus, his
paper allowed him to found his criminal empire, operating both a brothel and illegal gambling out
of the same building where the paper was printed, and of course, customers of those businesses were
also then vulnerable to blackmail. Between these connections, and his blackmail and extortion,
he was able to avoid convictions for the many libel suits brought against him. But the game
went sour in 1912 when Looney took on the powerful Mayor of Rock Island, Harry Shriver, apparently
Shriver had refused to intervene in the trial of one of Looneys henchmen, and so Looney went after
Shriver in the news, accusing him of all sorts of misconduct and affairs. In response, Shriver had
the paper shut down, had Looney arrested, and once arrested, Mayor Shriver himself, beat Looney so
badly that he had to be hospitalized. In response, Looneys supporters agitated a riot in the streets
that eventually included as many as three or four thousand people. Significant damage was done to
City Hall and police returned fire killing two people, the Governor declared Martial Law and
sent 600 National Guard troops to restore Order. Looney left the area, although his lieutenant
stayed around, but returned in 1921. Prohibition offered new opportunities and his empire grew. He
ran bootlegging and brothels, illegal saloons, his protection rackets in an auto theft ring,
he revived the news and its dirty tricks. Reportedly Looney had as many as 300 prostitutes
in his employ, all under his Madame Helen Van Dale who was called the queen of the Quad Cities.
Van Dale carried on an affair with the Chief of Police and essentially ran the department. One
of the favorite tactics was to have one of Van Dale's prostitutes leap into the arms of a local
politician, while one of Looneys newspapermen took a picture, and then the politician would
be subject to blackmail for fear the picture would show up in the newspaper. Ironically,
with so much money to be had, Mayor Shriver became a co-conspirator and Looney controlled both the
Police and powerful politicians. At one point, he had as many as a hundred and fifty gambling
dens and brothels under his control, that was larger than Johnny Torrio's Chicago operation,
so many local citizens patronized his illegal establishments that they essentially became
immune to prosecution, because to do so would implicate the entire town.
But cracks started to form in his organization, a former henchman fired over a fight with Looneys
son Connor over a girl, gave evidence to federal agents. Then a Saloon owner named Bill Gable,
angry that Looney had increased his protection fee, handed over checks to revenue agents signed
by Looney. When Gable was gunned down in the street The Rock Island Police, in Looneys pocket,
blamed outside gunmen, but the rival paper, The Argus refused to let the matter slide and kept
asking “Who killed Bill Gable''. But Looney still managed to avoid prosecution, then on October
6 1922, another disgruntled saloon owner named Anthony Bill Burg and several other men, attempted
to kill Looney, Looney was not hit but his 21 year old son Connor was killed, shot multiple times,
as well as a bystander. Despite being represented by the famous attorney Clarence Darrow, Bill Burg
and three of his associates were convicted in the murder of Conner Looney. Bill Burg's granddaughter
still claims to own the gun that he used to commit the crime. But the violence was Looneys
final undoing, feds raided his businesses, he was indicted for transporting stolen property as part
of his car theft ring and then in answer to the Argus's question, he was indicted for the murder
of Bill Gable. Mayor Shriver and Police Chief Cox were also indicted on conspiracy charges.
Looney managed to escape arrest for a while by hiding out with his relatives in Ottawa but he
was eventually captured in New Mexico, he was convicted in 1925 and sentenced to 14 years, he
served eight and a half before being released for health reasons, but never returned to Rock Island.
Patrick John Looney died of tuberculosis in 1947 and while he was not as famous as many other mob
bosses of his era he is still a legend in the Quad Cities, where you can get tours of his
hideouts and haunts. Lily was the inspiration for a character in a 1998 graphic novel called,
The Road to Perdition, which was turned into a film in 2002. The name was changed to Rooney,
and he was played by actor Paul Newman, but that character is entirely fictional as the
events all take place in the 1930s long after Looneys organization had collapsed and he was
sent to prison. Looneys violent rise and fall was emblematic of the era of the gangster in America,
while the Nation and Hollywood have somewhat romanticized the era, it was in fact, violent,
expletive, and often quite gruesome. Organized crime would become even more violent over the
period of prohibition and the depression and many mob bosses would rise who would become much more
famous than John Looney, but in many ways Looney was the first prototype for a prohibition-era mob
boss. His organization was larger than Papa Johnny Torrio's organization in Chicago, with whom he had
some criminal connections, and his rise and fall came even before “Scarface” Al Capone,
took over Torrio's organization and became a mob boss himself. If for no other reason than
he was the first, the model for an era, the infamous Quad Cities vice Lord deserves to be remembered.