Under his leadership the gang were not afraid to kill in public, as seen in one incident with a member of their bitter rivals. While E gan was alive and running the gang nobody betrayed them, they were ruthless and feared. Tom Egan became leader of Egans Rats after his friend and co-founder went into politics. Kinney would go on to become a Missouri State Senator, as a State Senator Kinney was known for creating landmark Missouri legislation limiting child labor and limiting women to working only eight-hour days. Louis, where all the thieves congregate and all that” He said he “knew his joint had a pretty bad reputation, but it aint so bad”. In Kinneys own words the saloon was “the toughest dive in St. Kinney ran a saloon at Second and Carr, which served as a headquarters for the Ashley Street Gang, soon to be known as the Egan’s Rats. Kinney was one of the founding members of Egans Rats.

Louis Post Dispatch in 1901įront – Thomas “Snake” Kinney. Hardback, 318 pages.Standing in Thomas “Snake” Kinney’s bar on Second and Carr Street, St. Published by Cumberland House Publishing, 2007. While his research extends far beyond the confines of this book, Egan's Rats is his first published work. About the Autho rĭaniel Waugh is a history buff with a particular interest in the history of crime in the greater St. Louis crime reached all the way into the White House. It was an era in which roving gangs of thugs terrorized voters with impunity, when alcohol was illegal, when a gangster could brag of his power in the newspaper, and when the tendrils of St. 'Egan's Rats' provides a fascinating glimpse into a past that wasn't always idyllic. Louis was touched by them in some way or another. Louis's most dangerous gangster, the gang boasted nearly 400 members. With Snake Kinney, a Missouri state senator and Tom Egan, St. For nearly ten years the gang cut a large swath in St. When Kinney ran on the Democratic ticket in the third ward, his friends were at the polls to ensure he got enough votes. They learned their trade the old-fashioned way, via robberies, brawls, burglaries, and shootings. Led by two childhood pals, Thomas Snake'' Kinney and Tom Egan, the Egan's Rats emerged from St. Egan's Rats: The Untold Story of the Prohibition-Era Gang That Ruled St.

Egan's Rats by Daniel Waugh