Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers Talk

Description

Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers Talk
With Author James E. Reagen

Delve into the gritty, colorful history of Prohibition-era Ogdensburg and the North Country. Author James E. Reagen will take you on a journey through the rum-running routes, speakeasies, and larger-than-life characters that defined the city of Ogdensburg during one of America’s most notorious chapters from stories in his popular books Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers (Volumes 1 & 2),

This lively, eye-opening look at a time when Ogdensburg was anything but dry—and you won’t want to miss it! Prohibition may have started out with the best of intentionsm but some Ogdensburg residents had trouble grasping that the nation’s no alcohol policy actually applied to them. The result was a wide open town where shootings, high speed chases, hijackings and even murders made national headlines, earning the community its nickname “Little Chicago.”

Topics will include:

• Ogdensburg’s infamous Brenno gang and their defense of the Red Devil Pool Hall and Speakeasy from a police raid in 1922.
• Gouverneur’s Fred Scoozafava’s ill-fated rendezvous with the New York Central railroad train in DeKalb Junction.
• U.S. Customs Regional Director Henry Holland’s indictment in the shooting death of a Watertown gangster.
• The Lisbon murder attempt on an Ogdensburg cab driver.
• The Sheriff’s raid on a Brooklyn gangster-operated cheese plant in Madrid