Since LEDE launched more than a week ago, there’s been a plethora of questions posed:
- How often will the site publish new content?
- Can press releases be sent for consideration?
- Do you accept freelance submissions?
- Will it just be about Wheeling?
- What does LEDE stand for?
OK … three or four times per day is the goal; please feel free to send press releases; freelance work is welcomed for consideration; no, the writers for the site will cover the entire Upper Ohio Valley; and the LEDE is the first paragraph of a news story or feature.
But the one inquiry that has been asked the most is whether I plan to compose another mob series.
The honest answer is, well, sort of. The mob mentality still exists in the Valley but definitely not in the same way it did when organized crime was overwhelmingly accepted. Many older residents have a steadfast belief that the region was better off when “the mob was in charge.” The topic often surfaces because of the prevalence of influence organized crime possessed in the Upper Ohio Valley for decades during the 1900s.
A perfect example is Friday evening’s story about the bar business in the Wheeling area when Gary Maxwell Sr. owned or managed multiple establishments over the last four decades. Maxwell, the owner of Bernie’s Bar in Clearview, recalled the “grey machines,” the bookie betting, and the spot sheets, and he discussed the under-the-table cash he collected while conducting those enterprises.
That culture is entwined still in many mentalities from Wetzel to Jefferson counties, and that’s because, for the most part, that kind of crime a mere 30 years ago was a young man’s game. Just because legendary leaders “Big” Bill Lias and Pauly “No Legs” Hankish have passed away does not mean their surviving underlings aren’t into some kind of action somewhere.
Also, these days spot sheets and bookies have been replaced by casinos and smartphone apps, and video lottery was implemented in West Virginia less than a decade after statewide raids cleared bars and restaurants of the machines in the mid-1980s. It wasn’t the gambling schemes, however, that ultimately brought down organized crime in the Upper Ohio Valley anyway. It was cocaine, of course.
Except for the drugs, most of the crimes perpetrated by the mob are now legal activities at casinos and inside taverns across the state of West Virginia, but when it comes to articles that focus on the great history of the Wheeling area, one never knows whether organized crime was involved. If so, then yes, I will write about it.
