Back In The Day, This Quiet Michigan Town Was A Mob Hangout
By Trent Jonas|Published June 15, 2023
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Trent Jonas
Author
Trent Jonas came to Minnesota to attend college - and never left. He's a Twin Cities-based writer with a BA in English and a MFA in creative writing, a Minnesota Master Naturalist, and the proud father of two adult children. With more than a decade of freelance writing experience under his belt, Trent is often out exploring his favorite topics: Minnesota's woods, lakes, and trails. Rhubarb pie is his weakness, so discovering new diners is also a passion.
The quiet Michigan town of Benton Harbor and its sister city of St. Joseph – separated by the St. Joseph River – lie on the shores of Lake Michigan in the extreme southwestern corner of the Lower Peninsula. Now typical bedroom communities, these Berrien County towns were once popular beach destinations. The area also had a more sinister reputation, though – as a Michigan mob hangout.
Today Benton Harbor is known for its historic downtown.
The distinctive Benton Harbor-St. Joseph Lighthouses mark the scenic shoreline where the St. Joseph River - which divides the sister cities - empties into Lake Michigan.
Sebastiano Domingo, a Sicilian immigrant, and his family lived on a farm near Benton Harbor. The Domingo family became involved in bootlegging during Prohibition.
In 1927, Sebastiano’s sister-in-law, Mary, was killed when the car she was driving exploded from a bomb likely intended for his brother, Tony. This incident spurred Tony and Sebastiano to seek revenge. From there, Sebastiano fell in with organized crime and became a hit man known as “Buster from Chicago.”
Domingo worked for a mob boss named Salvatore Maranzano, an immigrant from the same Sicilian town as Domingo.
Chicago mobster Al Capone also allied himself with Maranzano in what came to be known as the “Castellammare Wars” - a reference to the Sicilian hometown of both Domingo and Maranzano.
Capone was known for ruthlessly consolidating his power in Chicago through a 1929 mass killing known as the “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.” One of Capone’s shooters in the massacre was Fred “Killer” Burke, who fled to Berrien County to lay low after the massacre.
While drunk in St. Joseph, Burke was involved in a minor traffic accident. Paranoid, he shot and killed a police officer who attempted to intervene. Burke was eventually tried for murder in Berrien County and imprisoned at the Marquette State Prison, where he died in 1940.
Today, fortunately, the Benton Harbor area is no longer the haven for mobsters it once was. In fact, it’s now a gateway community for nearby Indiana Dunes National Park, one of the nation’s newest, located less than an hour down the lakeshore. Michiganders can enjoy an even wilder version of the same landscape in their own NPS unit, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which is about four hours north of Benton Harbor.
Have you visited the Benton Harbor area? Were you aware of its reputation as a Michigan Mob hangout? Let us know in the comments!
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