Interested in Green County History?
This blog follows my research into the history of our local movie theater— The Goetz— and surrounding personalities. Enjoy!
This blog follows my research into the history of our local movie theater— The Goetz— and surrounding personalities. Enjoy!
You can buy my book Lincoln's Counterfeiters: The Wisconsin Gang that Funded the Union and Started the Chicago Mob online here, via Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Target etc. or in Monroe, WI at Martin’s Sporting Goods.
Arcadia Publishing, The History Press imprint. Paperback, illustrated black and white (almost 90 images and maps), $24.99, 192 pages, 6x9x1 inches. ISBN 9781467157087. Thank you!
In need of cash to finance the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln turned to the nation’s leading counterfeiters, including a band of enterprising criminals based in Monroe, Wisconsin. Operating under the nose of Allan Pinkerton, the Bonelatta Gang worked alongside the Kentucky Colony, who formed Chicago’s corrupt Democratic Machine and nurtured the Levee Lords all the way down to Al Capone. Even Salmon P. Chase helped this ring of Monroe crooks, but this did not stop the Secret Service from throwing them under the bus when Republican scandals became too hot for President Grant to handle.
Historian and Monroe native Andrea Nolen reveals this fascinating and little-known story of an obscure gang in rural Wisconsin that helped birth not only the Chicago mob but also the Ziegfeld Follies and the New Age movement.