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
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