With a sizable contingent of Italian Americans in my extended family, I’ve come to admire their accomplishments in the arts, sciences, politics, philosophy … … oh, and thank you for the mob movie.
Naturally, when Denver narcotics detectives busted an apartment above former mob hangout Gaetano’s – silently owned, in part, by Denver Mayor John “Dutch” Hickenlooper – my Sopranos-addicted curiosity was sparked.
Gaetano’s restaurant exploits its Mafia history to sell food that’s “Italian to die for” from “one family to another.”
I wondered what sort of organized crime did Denver really have?
Mob “experts” maintain that the Denver Family has never consisted of more than 25 members at one time – I suspect this includes children and pets – and they seemed to be more interested in eating than running the underworld.
According to gangland historian Allan “Big Al” May, Giuseppe “Joe” Roma founded the Denver family in 1931 – late in the game. But Denver’s tradition of organized crime is rich with characters.
It starts with the notorious Jefferson “Soapy” Smith.
Romanticized in biographies and film, Soapy was, according to one writer, “king of the frontier confidence men, organizer of gangsters and grifters, master crook, and overlord of the criminal underworld in Denver and Creede, Colorado.”
Some claim that a sign above his saloon read “Caveat emptor” – Latin for “Let the buyer beware.”
Soapy should have taken his own advice. The kingpin, it is said, was escorted out of Denver after he was caught rigging the city’s election.
He died years later in Alaska. Soapy’s last words, according to great-grandson Jeff Smith, were: “My God, don’t shoot!”
Colorado’s first bona fide modern organized-crime boss was a Civil War vet named Lou “The Fixer” Blonger, who consolidated all of the city’s competing gangs.
Rumor had it that “The Fixer” had a telephone in his office with a direct line to the police chief.
With his second-in-command, Adolph “Kid Duffy” Duff, Blonger ran gambling joints and prostitution rings around Denver and Colorado Springs.
In one of the most publicized trials of its time, the “Bunco King” and his cohorts were convicted and sentenced to a Cañon City prison, where he died six months later.
And even before Denver had a certified branch of Cosa Nostra, brothers Pete and Sam Carlino had opened for business in Pueblo in the 1930s. Pete, in fact, carried the nickname “the Al Capone of southern Colorado.”
Unlike Capone, however, both brothers died with bullet-riddled bodies, most likely courtesy of Denver Boss Roma.
Roma ruled for a mere three years. It wasn’t until Denver’s Smaldone crime family came to power that the city could boast a respectable Italian mob family.
The Smaldone boys – Eugene “Checkers,” Clyde “Flip Flop” and Clarence “Chauncey” – were involved in loan-sharking, fencing, gambling and other corrupt ventures.
An article in a St. Louis newspaper titled “La Cosa Nostra Exposed” claimed that the Smaldone gang had actually “attempted to gain control of the Pueblo Police Department in 1977.”
Presumably, they did all this business from the confines of Gaetano’s.
“While patrons enjoyed pasta and red sauce on the main floor, ‘family business’ was conducted in a private room in the basement,” according to Gaetano’s.
In 1982, after numerous indictments, the Smaldone criminal syndicate faded away. In 1992, “Checkers,” 81, succumbed to a heart attack. “Flip Flop” died six years later at the age of 91.
“Chauncey,” Gaetano’s claims, lives in Denver and stops in for meals.
Not exactly Chicago 1925, but it’s a criminal history we can all be proud of.
(For more of the fascinating – often fantastic – history of Denver crime, visit: soapysmith.net, www.blongerbros.com/history and www.gaetanositalian.com.)
David “Righty” Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
