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Blogroll
Category Archives: Crime and vice
A.C. Littlejohn fraud and suicide
Angus Littlejohn, once a pillar of Springfield’s business community, spent three years in the 1930s trying to recoup his reputation and keep himself out of prison. He failed. On the morning of July 2, 1938, five minutes before he was … Continue reading
John Schnepp, mayor & embezzler
John S. Schnepp (1866-1954) was a lawyer, real estate developer and two-time mayor of Springfield. He also was an embezzler and philanderer. With his thefts on the verge of exposure in January 1932, Schnepp disappeared. Discovered three years later selling … Continue reading
Washington Hall, 1922-26
In the 1920s, the Washington Street Mission operated a rehabilitation center for young prostitutes in what now (2018) is the Chesapeake Seafood House. The facility closed in 1926, with no publicity and no explanation. Fifty years later, however, the mission’s … Continue reading
Bryan Bolton, gangster
Bryan Bolton, a Thayer farmboy turned Springfield businessman turned gangster, took part in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre and partnered with some of most vicious thugs of the 1920s and ‘30s. But Bolton died peacefully and nearly forgotten in California … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and vice, Law enforcement
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Kidnapped banker, 1932
Springfield coal miner James Gammaitoni lost his life savings when Taylorville’s John B. Colegrove State Bank failed in 1929. So Gammaitoni took direct action: He kidnapped Colegrove. John Benjamin Colegrove had been a lawyer and real estate investor before he … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Crime and vice, Depression, Law enforcement
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Lake Springfield holdout, 1933
Leander Shoup vowed to go down in a blaze of gunfire rather than relinquish his 123 acres of farmland to inundation by Lake Springfield. The city of Springfield won a lawsuit to take over the land, a little over a … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and vice, Farming, Law enforcement, Local government, Uncategorized
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Harry Taylor, first black firefighter, police detective
Harry Taylor (1861-1928) was Springfield’s first African-American firefighter, but became better known as a Springfield police officer and detective. Positions on both the police and fire departments were patronage appointments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Taylor was … Continue reading
Hangings in Sangamon County, 1826-1927
Sangamon County put to death seven men, all convicted of murder, between 1826, five years after the county was established, and 1927, when a new state law required executions to be carried out in state prisons. Those hanged were: … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and vice, Law enforcement, Sangamon County
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‘Murder by abortion,’ 1946
A Springfield osteopath was convicted of murder after allegedly conducting an abortion that led to the death of a 19-year-old woman in 1946. Ronald U. Tilley (1897-1966) was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but the Illinois Supreme Court overturned … Continue reading
Fisher ‘murder’ hysteria, 1841
The case of a “murdered” man who later turned up alive is one of 19th-century Springfield’s best-known legal controversies. That’s mainly because Abraham Lincoln wrote about it, but also because of the roles played by circumstantial evidence, a false confession … Continue reading