Moran, Bugs (1891-1957), was a Chicago, Illinois, gangster and bootlegger during the Prohibition Era. The Prohibition Era was a time during the early 1900’s in the United States when laws banning the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages were in effect. Bootleggers were smugglers of alcohol. Moran’s gang was targeted in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, which took place in Chicago on Feb. 14, 1929.
Moran’s birth name was Adelard Cunin. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Aug. 21, 1891. Cunin moved to Chicago’s North Side while in his teens. He joined an Irish street gang and adopted the name George Moran. He became known as “Bugs.” Moran was jailed several times for burglary and robbery. He competed with other criminal syndicate (gang) figures, including the notorious gangster Al Capone , who led a rival South Side Italian gang. Moran rose to power after his friend and mentor, North Siders mob boss Dion O’Banion, was killed in 1924. Moran was responsible for arranging the killings of several people, including Capone associates.
Moran himself narrowly escaped death in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Many historians believe that he and members of his gang were lured to a North Side parking garage on Valentine’s Day in 1929. But Moran arrived a couple of minutes late. While en route to the Clark Street garage, he noticed what he thought were police officers in a detective’s police car. Assuming the police were there to make an arrest, Moran never entered the garage. The “officers” were actually hit men (appointed killers) dressed in police-style uniforms. The gunmen carried machine guns and at least one shotgun. While pretending to carry out a raid, they lined the victims up against a brick wall and shot all seven men—including several of Moran’s gangsters—to death. The murders were never solved. Although historians have generally pointed to Capone as the mastermind behind the massacre, that charge was never proved.
The end of Prohibition marked a downturn in Moran’s life. He was left almost indigent (poor) and returned to committing the relatively petty (minor) crimes of his youth. Moran received a 10-year prison sentence in Ohio for robbing a bank messenger in 1946. In 1956, he was arrested for bank robbery and imprisoned at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. He died there of lung cancer on Feb. 25, 1957.
