3. UNDERWORLD – Bernie Shelton and Loss of Innocence (March 27, 2019)
Just a quick warning at the top: This episode includes depictions of violent acts and some strong language. As such, it may not be suitable for children.
Welcome to Middle America.
Jared Grabb “Best”
3A
I was ten years old, and my best friend of the last four years, Ethan, had recently moved 100 miles northwest to Moline. For a fourth grader, this might as well have been the moon. Part of our bond had come from a pairing of personalities, but some of our bond had, of course, also come from our shared school and the proximity of our houses in the neighborhood.
So, with Ethan’s departure came my own social stretching.
Jake was another boy my age that lived a few doors down. He lived with his grandparents and his aunt. His dad lived down the street a few blocks further, and his mom lived somewhere across town, but I don’t remember Jake staying with either of them much.
Jake went to a private school instead of the public institution that I attended, and this is the difference in routine that had caused us to be slow in striking up a friendship. With my former number one out of the picture, Jake and I began spending most of our days after school and on the weekends together. The bulk of this time was spent playing make believe.
The unplugged treadmill in Jake’s grandparents’ garage would become a space ship or a time machine throughout the summer months. The grey plastic monstrosity’s handles, buttons, and dials were perfect for setting the scene, while the shade and concrete kept us cool. Jake’s elegant and smiling grandmother would pop out now and again, serving up lemonade and snacks from the connecting kitchen.
Or, when the days began to shorten and our families actually let us stay out until the sun had set, the chance full moon would lead us into a howling fit from the sidewalk as we pretended to be werewolves. Sitting at the front porch and at a quiet distance, Jake’s grandfather’s cigar embers would wink from dim to bright and to back to dim again.
And then, chilly Autumn days would eventually push us inside to an upstairs guest room where we would often pretend to pen songs for upcoming movie soundtracks. I remember when the announcement came that a third Robocop movie was going to be made. Us boys went into overtime. As we impersonated the catch-phrase of “drop it,” Jake’s rowdy yet warm aunt chuckled and encouraged us from down the hall.
Just like kids now, we had digested all of the stories of adventure and good versus evil. Whether it was our early diet of Transformers and He-Man or our later diet of Sigourney Weaver’s Alien movies, we wanted to laugh in the face of danger and against all odds, crush the oppressive, villainous forces in the universe.
As we entered into the ‘90s, gangster rap had started making its way out to the quiet neighborhoods of the Midwest. Jake glorified the themes behind artists like 2Pac, N.W.A., Naughty By Nature, and Public Enemy. Soon, we had formed what we called a “gang:” just the two of us, sitting on a curb in a middle-class residential neighborhood, determined to follow in the footsteps of these famous musicians and protect what was ours. I had no idea what this meant, but we talked tough to each other and strutted with puffed out chests between our houses.
The height of our fantastic drama came one Saturday when some older kids, now I imagine them to have been early 20-somethings, renting a house on the corner pretended to kidnap a girl from the block. A swarm of grade school children congregated around the house as the 20-somethings wielded ketchup-covered knives at the windows and BB guns upon the steps. It must have been a real hoot for the young adults, one of whom we discovered later was a cousin of and had orchestrated the prank with the young girl, but to Jake and I this was the evil that we had been preparing to stand against. We ran, circling the block, and gathered our families to save the poor child from these beasts.
Whipped into a frenzy, we related the terrors that awaited at the corner. Jake’s grandparents and my parents rolled their eyes before giving the young residents on the corner a stern talking to. But in our minds, we had done it. The gang stood victorious. The hood was safe.
Fancy Hawk “Looks Fancy”
3B
It was 1931 and Bernie Shelton and his brothers were sitting pretty at the height of their powers. Blackie Armes and Ray Walker were still standing strong in support, and young recruits like Frank “Buster” Wortman were eager to pull their weight.
The years of 1927 and 1928 had been a harrowing test, with 25-year-sentences following a conviction for mail robbery and another separate conviction for bank robbery. But, the brothers had come out on top.
After the key witnesses of Charles Birger and Art Newman were exposed for their roles in the murder of the West City Mayor Joe Adams, the tide had turned sending the mail robbery trial into a new trial that never came to be and the bank robbery trial into an overturned verdict at the Illinois Supreme Court. The murder of Shelton friend “Mayor Joe” had then led Birger to the end of a noose and the Sheltons to be nearly unopposed in their control of the underworld in downstate Illinois.
The East St. Louis headquarters of the Sheltons in ’31 was a lawless city with a booming economy based on the sales of horses, mules, hogs, processed aluminum, roofing material, baking powder, paint pigments, grain, and coal. All of this was made easier by the city also being the largest railroad hub outside of Chicago. There was money to be had, and when it came to booze and gambling, the Shelton’s were getting it.
Their entrance into gambling in my hometown of Peoria in 1930 had been smooth enough as well. Clyde Garrison, the gambling czar here in Peoria, had been nearly abducted by Chicago gangsters, and Garrison’s wife had been murdered in the exchange. Seeking protection, Garrison had then called upon the Sheltons.
The partnership worked. Even the Chicago gang led by the revered and feared Al Capone, who would be entering prison on tax charges within a few months, knew striking into Shelton territory was more trouble that it was worth.
And, if anyone felt that it was a Shelton world after all, it was Bernie Shelton. 11 years younger than the gang’s leader Carl Shelton and 9 years younger than senior member and middle brother “Big Earl” Shelton, Bernie didn’t have quite as much of the earnest, hardworking farm boy in him. Contemporaries tended to describe Bernie as a lover of good clothes, big automobiles, wild parties, and beautiful women. When he wasn’t living so loud, he was known to be quite the animal lover, prizing his golden Palomino horses above all.
Bernie was only in his teens when his older brothers began conspiring, robbing, and doing time. By his early 20s, Bernie was becoming the intimidating “muscle” of the family gang while they ran a speakeasy at the corner of 19th Street and Market Avenue. Carl had the police and government officials on the payroll, and Earl was running loads of booze up from the Bahamas through Florida. Meanwhile, it was Bernie who was the protector of allies and eminent threat to competitors.
After all, it’s easiest to run a successful business when the environment and distribution are safe and stable. This is what Bernie and his brothers could better insure than the police and local government, and this is why they had been so successful in all of downstate Illinois.
As far as Bernie’s “cool” was concerned, it didn’t hurt that 1931 was a year of big Hollywood gangster films. Both Little Caesar starring Edward G. Robinson and The Public Enemy starring James Cagney were released, replacing the popular westerns and cartoons of recent years.
And, Bernie had his movie-worthy moments too.
According to Carl Baldwin of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, sometime shortly before February 2, 1931, the Sheltons had received an invite to a business meeting at a speakeasy located at 330A East Broadway in East St. Louis. The invitation had been made by Joseph P. Carroll, an ex-policeman, gambler, and former partner of Bernie’s over at Red Top Taxicab Co., and Tommy Hayes, a former gunman for the rival Cuckoo Gang. Carl suspected that Hayes coveted the Sheltons’ position in the east side market.
As Carl and Bernie exited their car to approach the beer flat with their Thompson submachine guns in hand, a cab driver happened to pass by and give them a tip that they were walking into a trap. The brothers still entered the speakeasy, but now with guns blazing instead hands held out. When 3 bodies were eventually found elsewhere, likely moved with the cooperation of local police, they included Carroll, a gang hanger-on named Theodore Kaminski, and pawnshop owner David Hoffman, who was said to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Scouts Honor “Like Death, I Will Come For You”
3C
There were rough spots in my youth, but compared to most, I had an ideal upbringing. My parents were attentive and supportive. I never worried about food or clothes or the mortgage. I always knew deep down that I was loved, and I always knew that I was safe. The games that Jake and I had played were just that, games.
On a hot day a couple summers into our friendship, there was a squeal of tires out in front of my family’s house. My mother peeked out the living room window to see a lump of a figure being shoved out the door of a still moving car. Before she could exit the house onto the front lawn, the car was disappearing around the bend.
I watched as my mother rushed to the unmoving form in the grass and found Jake’s aunt sick and unresponsive. Minutes later, Jake’s aunt was loaded onto a flashing ambulance.
Jake’s aunt eventually recovered, but one tragedy replaced another with Jake’s mother unexpectedly passing away. She had been drinking late with her boyfriend at their house across town when she tripped at the top of a flight of stairs. The fall had been fatal.
I attended the funeral across town with my parents, and we offered our condolences to the family. Along with the sadness that circles around the loss of a young woman, there was also a high-pitched tension in the room, a barely audible hiss in the background.
After the funeral, things began to change.
One Saturday found Jake and I riding in the back of his grandparents’ car innocently enough when I heard his lovely, gentle grandmother curse at a house out the left window. It seemed that the boyfriend was still living in the house where Jake’s mother had passed away, but I didn’t quite understand the ill-feelings.
And, then it came out.
What had been games for me had been a far more real venting of emotion for Jake.
It was said that both of Jake’s parents had issues with substance abuse. His father dealt out of his house down the street. It suddenly made sense why my parents wouldn’t allow me to follow Jake over there on the few occasions I was invited.
The boyfriend of Jake’s mother had been abusive. The rumor was that he was a violent drunk. Police began investigating foul play, and the family began openly condemning him.
A year later, the boyfriend was taken into police custody and then convicted of murder, for which he received 50 years at Danville Correctional Center.
It seemed that the hood wasn’t safe, and the air around us hung itself with just a bit more weight.
Angry Gods “Slow Burn”
3D
Bernie was dead. Carl had been murdered 9 months earlier. Two years down the road, their oldest brother Roy, who had never been an active member of the Shelton Gang, would be murdered while driving a tractor on his farm. Multiple murder attempts were also made on “Big Earl,” youngest sister Lula, nephew “Little Earl,” and long-time right-hand-man Ray Walker.
Prohibition had ended in ’33, which severely cut into the take of the Shelton Brothers’ Gang. This caused the Sheltons to have some issues paying off officials as they had before. Likely not unrelated, Blackie Armes, Ray Walker, and “Buster” Wortman were then all caught and sent to prison after assaulting federal agents during the raid of a still near Collinsville. Armes and Wortman both wound up imprisoned at Alcatraz.
In 1934, Carl, “Big Earl,” and Bernie then found themselves charged with federal tax evasion. The writing was on the wall for their time in East St. Louis.
So, after being briefly headquartered back near their childhood stomping grounds in Fairfield, the brothers took another opportunity.
Relations with Peoria’s gambling boss had cooled by 1940, and Mr. Garrison wisely chose to retire for a time. This brought the Shelton Brothers into town at full force.
The Sheltons found Peoria to be another lawless city like East St. Louis. It was a study in extremes with the rich living high on the bluffs and the poor living down in the foul-smelling industrial neighborhoods below. It was also the second largest city in the state and filled to the brim with both churches and saloons.
As the Sheltons were making themselves at home here, Blackie Armes and “Buster” Wortman were finally allowed to leave prison. However, during their time at Alcatraz, the men had felt that the Sheltons were either unable to look out for them or had not cared to do so. The Chicago gangsters saw this as an opportunity and made advances to woo the men into the Chicago way of viewing the world.
Finding themselves back on the streets of East St. Louis, Armes and Wortman dove into the underworld with the help of their new northern allies. Soon, Frank “Buster” Wortman found himself in control of gambling on the east side. Eager to further expand, he saw that the Shelton’s stood in his path on the way to further glory. Seeking to remove them, he placed $10,000 on head of Carl Shelton and another $10,000 on the head of Bernie.
A crew from Chicago saw this possible gain in money and stature and tried to ambush Carl and Bernie at their new West Peoria headquarters, The Parkway Tavern. What they found instead was multiple times their number in armed Shelton henchman. The crew quickly turned tail back to their northern home.
In September of 1944, Blackie Armes himself took a shot at Ray Walker, injuring but not killing the still loyal man. 3 months later, Armes found himself in a nightclub owned by Walker’s cousin… and then found himself dead of a gunshot wound.
Thus, Blackie Armes was out of the way, but Shelton childhood friend Charles “Black Charlie” Harris then teamed up with Wortman, spelling disaster for the gang. Harris knew the Sheltons and their home turf intimately. He also, like Armes and Wortman, knew how it felt to be snubbed while serving time for the Shelton Brothers’ Gang.
Carl Shelton retreated from Peoria in 1945 after a reform candidate named Carl Triebel was elected mayor. Bernie stepped up to take over gambling in the county, but Wortman, Harris, and various allied Chicago agents took this for weakness. Frank Kraemer, a slot machine operator and tavern owner in service of the Sheltons, was shot and killed at his home on Farmington Road in February of 1946. In September, Shelton “muscle” Joel Nyberg was found on a Peoria area golf course full of bullet holes. A month later, Shelton slot machine operator Phillip Stumpf was shot to death while driving home from a bar out on Big Hollow Road.
As far as anyone could tell, these murders went on without retaliation from the Sheltons, making the gang appear even weaker while their political payoffs again began to lag.
It was October of 1947, when they got Carl Shelton. He was shot to death on a country road near his home, and according to Ray Walker and “Little Earl,” who were trailing Carl in another automobile, it was “Black Charlie” who had done the shooting.
Attempts on Bernie Shelton’s life continued while he remained determined to hold Peoria County. He managed to avoid an ambush in Galesburg while traveling to Iowa but came to his end on July 26, 1948.
Bernie had exited The Parkway Tavern, intending to take his car into the shop, when a well-dressed man hiding in the underbrush on the hillside sent a bullet from a .351 caliber Winchester automatic rifle through the flesh near Bernie’s heart. The man then raced back up the hill to a dark green Chevy sedan waiting for him in St. Joseph’s Cemetery.
A.L. Hunt, owner of Hunts Family Restaurant located across Farmington Road from the tavern, immediately called the sheriff. Bernie managed to shuffle back to a bar stool inside the tavern until walking back out to an ambulance soon after, at his own insistence. Despite his determination, Bernie Shelton died soon after his arrival at the St. Francis Hospital emergency room.
Unlike his brothers who were buried down in Wayne County, Bernie’s last wife insisted that he be buried in Peoria’s Parkview Cemetery, just on the other side of Laura Bradley Park from his former base of operations.
Jared Grabb “Thank the Day”
Jared Grabb “Prison Bars (Middle America Version)”