Author Lewis talks about why gangsters liked MN

Editor’s note: This is part two of the Gangster story continued from last week’s Canary.

It was a simpler time in Northern Minnesota. The period of the late 20's/early 30's is a time in which the whole country seems to be running at full tilt. Everything that can happen did happen. Bootleggers were shuttling booze throughout the country, bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde became twisted heroes, Al Capone and his gangs were wreaking havoc in Chicago, and Minnesota had its share of wild incidents. 

During this time, rural Wisconsin and Minnesota were a summer sanctuary for gangsters. When the strains of skirting Prohibition got too heavy, Al Capone recharged here. Taking a respite from bank robbing, John Dillinger relaxed not too far away. Capone, Dillinger and other gangsters flocked to the leafy lakes region for many of the same reasons wealthy, law-abiding Chicagoans did: the cool summers and soothing recreation.

There were advantages. The gangsters paid money for things like food, laundry and errands, things that were easy to do and the money they paid was plentiful. Not having a lot of resources for that kind of income, rural Minnesota residents could stay quiet, if it meant they could cash in.

“Dapper” Dan Hogan was one of the gangsters who vacationed on the lakeshores of Northern Minnesota. Hogan built a lake home in Mahnomen County on Big Bass Lake, where he would spend relaxing days, away from the problems he faced in his other homes. As fate would have it, Dan should have stayed at the lake, as he was the victim of the probable first car bomb in the U.S. He died shortly after the bomb exploded at a hospital in St. Paul.

There were good guys in Northern Minnesota as well, Gustav Aaron Youngquist was a Swedish-American lawyer and public prosecutor. He served as Minnesota Attorney General and as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General who successfully prosecuted Al Capone for federal income tax evasion.  Youngquist was born near Gothenborg, Sweden and moved to the United States as a small child with his family. He enrolled at William Mitchell College of Law (then the St. Paul College of Law) and graduated in 1909. Following graduation, he entered into partnership with Charles Loring, a future Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Youngquist served as Polk County attorney (1915-1918). Later, he successfully ran for the offices of the Attorney for Carver County. In February 1928, he was appointed Minnesota Attorney General by Governor Theodore Christianson to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Albert F. Pratt. 

In 1929, the state Republican Party tried to draft Youngquist as their gubernatorial candidate for the next year's election. Instead, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell convinced Youngquist to accept a position at the Department of Justice, where he was charged with enforcing national prohibition laws of the Volstead Act. He remained there until 1933, having argued between sixty and seventy cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and overseen the trial and sentencing of Al Capone. Youngquist practiced actively following his return to Minnesota.