About: James Balestrere   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Born in Palermo, Sicily, Balestrere initially settled with his family in Milwaukee, in spring 1903. When he was a teenager, his family moved to the Kansas City area. Balestrere became a bigshot in the Kansas City outfit during Prohibition. Though a stone mason by trade, he is believed to have teamed with Joseph DiGiovanni and his brothers in a bootlegging-related venture, supplying sugar to moonshine operations.

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  • James Balestrere
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  • Born in Palermo, Sicily, Balestrere initially settled with his family in Milwaukee, in spring 1903. When he was a teenager, his family moved to the Kansas City area. Balestrere became a bigshot in the Kansas City outfit during Prohibition. Though a stone mason by trade, he is believed to have teamed with Joseph DiGiovanni and his brothers in a bootlegging-related venture, supplying sugar to moonshine operations.
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  • Born in Palermo, Sicily, Balestrere initially settled with his family in Milwaukee, in spring 1903. When he was a teenager, his family moved to the Kansas City area. Balestrere became a bigshot in the Kansas City outfit during Prohibition. Though a stone mason by trade, he is believed to have teamed with Joseph DiGiovanni and his brothers in a bootlegging-related venture, supplying sugar to moonshine operations. After Prohibition the K.C. mob seems to have been under the control of Charles Binaggio, connected to the Pendergast political machine. Binaggio might also have had a hand in St. Louis-area gambling. Some believe Binaggio was merely a front man, while underworld orders continued to come from Joseph DiGiovanni. At that time, Balestrere put his mason skills to use constructing a local restaurant/casino. (He previously worked operating a grocery store and a drug store.) The gambling establishment became known as "the White House." In the late 1930s, Balestrere also managed a keno game for Pendergast. Binaggio and his chief lieutenant Charles "Mad Dog" Gargotta were murdered on April 5, 1950, at a political headquarters. At the time, Missouri Senator James P. Kem called the murders an outgrowth of "the unholy alliance between politics and the underworld in Kansas City." Balestrere reportedly was a partner in the leadership group that followed Binaggio. Control of the K.C. mob looks to have been shared by Balestrere, Gaetano LoCoco, Charles Carollo and former Binaggio ally Anthony Gizzo. Some pronounced Gizzo as the supreme boss in the city's underworld from 1950 until his death of natural causes in 1953. However, the Kefauver Committee, after hearing Balestrere's testimony in September 1950, decided that Balestrere was the big man. The date of Balstrere's death is somewhat in doubt. A headstone at Kansas City's Calvary Cemetery indicates that he died in 1959. Death years in the earlier 1950s are often cited by historians.
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