Iron Man

In the early hours of September 29. 1932, Aaron "Iron" Barger's bullet-riddled corpse was found in an automobile on Chicago's south side. What constitutes riddled? Nine bullets in the head and body. He was also tortured before giving up the ghost. Unlucky him.

Barger was a suspect in the Evergreen mail robbery from 1928. His brother's garage was used as a hide-out for the bandits. We are told that Barger turned states evidence, and was exonerated while the two masterminds of the job, Frances Keating and Tommy Holden were sent to Leavenworth.

Who riddled Barge? Police speculated that his torture and death were a result of his attempting to muscle in on the Southside beer racket, which at the time was the battle ground for the Spike O'Donnell and Danny McGeoghegan gangs. It was also mentioned that he was involved with a ring of auto thieves and may have had a falling out.

Aaron "Iron" Barger

Opening Salvo

By 1923, Chicago gang lord John Torrio had the city carved up nice and neat so all the gangs could serve their fiefdoms with beer and alcohol and nobody would war with anyone. All would get rich. Then South Side gang leader Spike O'Donnell came home from prison. 

Basically left out of the fray, the O'Donnells', or Spike really, decided that they had to make their own way so started encroaching on bars in and around their bailiwick and forcing their beer on them. September 7,  O'Donnell gang making "sales calls" on unwilling tavern keepers. The beer that the recalcitrant barkeeps were then purchasing was coming from either John Torrio or his allies, the Saltis-McErlane gang. 

One bar in particular that day had turned the gang down once. This time when they said "No" O'Donnell gangsters attacked the owner and his bartender busting both of their heads. After that, they visited about five other establishments before heading back to a saloon in the safety of their own neighbor hood.

As they sat back drinking beer, eating sandwiches and patting themselves on the back for a hard days work, the door swung open and rival gunmen entered. Not ready for a battle the O'Donnell's headed out the back door. Contemporary newspapers state that O'Donnell gunman Jerry O'Connor was brought down with a rifle shot to the heart. His gang mates then piled him into a car and took him to doctor where he was announced dead. Capone biographies tell a different story. The later accounts stated that O'Connor was trapped inside the bar and made to walk out the front door where gangster Frank McErlane was waiting with a sawed off shotgun and proceeded to blow his head off. Thus began what became known as the Chicago Beer Wars

Jerry O'Connor

A Chicago Double

It was a two-fer for Chicago on this date back in 1931. Former dirty cop George Wilson's machine-gun perforated body was found by three girls who were walking near a railroad viaduct and James Quigley, a South Side saloon keeper, who was said to have been a one time member of Spike O'Donnell's gang but had recently broke out on his own with his own gang, was found floating in a drainage canal in about thirty minutes south of Chicago in the city of Lockport.

Thirty-three year old Wilson was kicked off the force in 1923 for shaking down wine merchants. Afterwards he may have been involved with the Druggan-Lake gang but may have had a falling out. It was reported that he had said, "If anything happens to me, George Druggan [brother of gang leader Terry Druggan] a week prior to his murder he was arrested for a robbery and posted bail.

Forty-Five year old Quigley was originally a railroad man who moved into the saloon business. After breaking with O'Donnell he tried carving out his own territory which put him at odds with O'Donnell and as well as the Saltis-McErlane gang. It was believed that Quigley killed Frank McErlane's chauffeur George Fitzgerald and that McErlane was the one who put him in the drainage canal with a bullet in the head.

  L.  George Wilson         R.  James Quigley