One of the most notorious sin cities and gambling meccas in America was little ole Steubenville, Ohio. It was the hometown and birthplace of renowned singing sensation Dino Crocetti, better known the world over as beloved Italian crooner Dean Martin.
From the 1930s through 1970s, the town’s total population averaged only 30,000 to 35,000 residents.
Steubenville was a small city that always maintained its small-town feel and appeal.
Yet, for many decades, Steubenville had a notorious reputation as a wide-open cesspool of backroom gambling casinos, prostitution, and rampant official corruption that allowed local underworld figures to flourish unimpeded by arrest and prosecution.
The laissez faire attitude and rampant corruption in their local government and police department enabled a small band of Calabrian-born racketeers known as “The Black Hand Gang” to virtually take over the town “lock, stock, and barrel.”
In fact, Steubenville became so notorious for vice, violence, and its corrupt police force that it was given the nickname “Little Chicago.”
Little Chicago
The Calabrian underworld came to prominence in the early 1920s after waging vicious street warfare with other racketeers for control of the illicit bootlegging trade, gambling, and other rackets.
Local authorities say there was a long string of killings within the city’s “Argonne” and other Italian districts over several years time until a Calabrian racketeer named Vincenzo (Jimmy) Tripodi finally rose to power.
Together with his brother-in-law Cosmo Quattrone, these two notorious hoodlums would become the recognized underworld powers in Steubenville for the next sixty years.
Tripodi and Quattrone operated for decades out of the Venetian Cafe, Midway Social Club, and Rex Cigar Shop from where they operated high-stakes dice games and oversaw other gambling rackets like “policy” numbers, bookmaking, card games, and slot machines.
The “Tripodi Crew” also ran theft rings, received and “fenced” stolen goods, and “shook down” all independent local bookies and other underworld types operating within their perceived “turf.”
Jimmy and Cosmo were two guys not to be trifled with. They controlled Steubenville with an iron-fist and proved it time and again through unbridled violence. Over the years they were suspected of having killed more guys than cancer as they rose to power.
The FBI and other knowledgeable law enforcement authorities say that both Tripodi and Quattrone later became inducted members of Pittsburgh’s LaRocca crime Family.
Tripodi reputedly served as the “Capo” in charge of Steubenville, and Quattrone served as his “Acting Capo” or second-in-command.
The Tripodi Regime Leadership Chart below represents the Tripodi Regime’s known membership and criminal associates from the 1920s through 1980.
Aside from Jimmy Tripodi and Cosmo Quattrone who were documented as Mafia members, the men listed below as “soldiers” were placed in that position on the chart based on their criminal backgrounds and level of significance to this crew over the years.
At the very least, they were top-ranked “associate members” or “proposed” members.
Remember, too, that most were originally members of the Calabrian Societa’ Onorato who were later absorbed by Cosa Nostra after Jimmy Tripodi and Cosmo Quattrone became “formally inducted” into the Pittsburgh Family.
