Bugsy Siegel organized crime leader is killed
Benjamin Bugsy Siegel the man who brought organized crime to the West Coast is shot and killed at his mistress Virginia Hills home in Beverly Hills California.Siegel had been talking to his associate Allen Smiley when three bullets were fired through the window and into his head killing him instantly.Siegels childhood had been pretty similar to that of other organized crime leaders Growing up with little money in Brooklyn he managed to establish himself as a teenage thug.With his pal Meyer Lansky Siegel terrorized local peddlers and collected protection money.
Before long they had a business that included bootlegging and gambling all over New York City.By the late 1930s Siegel had become one of the major players of a highly powerful crime syndicate which gave him 500000 to set up a Los Angeles franchise.Bugsy threw himself into the Hollywood scene making friends with some of the biggest names of the timeCary Grant Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.His all-night parties at his Beverly Hills mansion became the hot spot in town.
He also started up a solid gambling and narcotics operation to keep his old friends back east happy.Just before World War II began Siegel traveled to Italy to sell explosives to Mussolini but the deal fizzled when tests of the explosives did too.In 1945 Siegel had a brilliant idea.Just hours away from Los Angeles sat the sleepy desert town of Las Vegas Nevada.
It had nothing going for it except for a compliant local government and legal gambling.Siegel decided to build the Flamingo Hotel in the middle of the desert with 6000000 a chunk of which came from the New York syndicate.The Flamingo wasnt immediately profitable and Siegel ended up in an argument with Lucky Luciano over paying back the money used to build it.Around the same time that Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills Lucianos men walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were now in charge.
Even Siegel probably never imagined the astounding growth and success of Las Vegas in the subsequent years.
