kansas city mob tour

The Kansas City Gangster Tour

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Join us for Kansas City’s oldest running gangster tour.

Midwest Mobsters

AN INTERACTIVE JOURNEY THROUGH KANSAS CITY’S GANGSTER PAST

Kansas City was a favorite spot of the “old timers.” The Gangster Tour puts you hot on the trail of this city’s most notorious Goodfellas.

Don’t make us twist your arm. Grab your chopper, hop on the bus and you’ll be immersed in a melodramatic look at mob homes and hangouts, turf wars and infamous crimes like the Union Station massacre.

Tours board at Union Station’s front entrance.  

Corruption and Murder and Vice, Oh, MY!

 In the 1920s and 30s Kansas City had it all and we tell you the full story on The Kansas City Gangster Tour! Johnny Holiday and his friends will guide you on an inter-active bus tour of Kansas City showing you sites of speakeasies, brothels, murders, and more! Kansas City was known as a wide-open town and we have all the dirty details. The Kansas City Gangster Tour is celebrating 20 years as Kansas City’s longest running historical tour.

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Tours run year round.

Tours run Saturday: 10AM, 12PM, & 2PM

• Adults $35 tour only
• Private Party Minimum: 15 people
• Tour Time: 90 Minutes
• Tour Days: Every Saturday at 10:00am, 12:00pm, and 2:00pm

(Private Tours Are Also Available. All tours are BYOB.) Dinner & Tour $79.00 per person (Groups of 15 or more)

To make reservations Call: 816-471-1234

Gangster Tour

Crown Center,

Address: 30 W Pershing Rd., Kansas City, MO 64108

Get Directions

Phone: (816) 471-1234

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Price: $35.00 per person

Hours: Tour starts 1pm Sat.

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ghost & Gangster Tour

Dive into the Shadowy Past of Kansas City: Enjoy a Thrilling Ghost & Gangsters Tour, Even if You Are a Non-Believer.

Ghost & Gangsters Tour – $60 per person

Embark on a captivating journey into the shadowy past of Kansas City with our thrilling Ghost & Gangsters Tour, designed for everyone to enjoy – even if you are a non-believer. Uncover the chilling tales of haunted locations and notorious gangster hideouts as our expert guides lead you through the city’s dark history. Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, this tour promises an unforgettable experience filled with intrigue, mystery, and spine-tingling stories. Join us for a unique adventure through Kansas City’s underworld, where the past comes alive in the most unexpected ways. Are you ready to explore the secrets of the city’s mysterious past, without the need for true belief? Step into the shadows and let the stories unfold before you on this thrilling Ghost & Gangsters Tour.

tOur Details

✔️ Uncover chilling tales of haunted locations and gangster hideouts

✔️ Expert guides lead you through the city’s dark history

  ✔️ Whether skeptic or believer, prepare for spine-tingling stories

✔️ Promise of an unforgettable experience filled with intrigue and mystery

  ✔️ Explore the mysterious secrets of the city’s dark past

✔️ Step into the shadows and let the stories unfold on this thrilling tour

Here IS What Our Customers Say

Five-star reviews, free t-shirt.

While supplies last. Limited quantity in Mahomes Red.

Barley Bus Fleet

Our diverse fleet of buses, including a charming Vintage VW bus that’s a true throwback, offers a variety of options for different group sizes and seating preferences. For larger gatherings, we seamlessly coordinate with our partners to ensure everyone is comfortably accommodated.

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KC Gangster Tour - Excellent - Kansas City Gangster Tour

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• Kansas City Gangster Tour

Fun, especially for a private group! Learned several new tidbits about our area's history. The... read more

The tour guides are hilarious and very knowledgeable about KC history! If you have a free day in... read more

KC Gangster Tour - Excellent

The driver and tour guide were both excellent presenters and actors. The tour was informative and fun. We drove by numerous locations in the KC area where historical mob activity occurred and received an account of what happened and who was involved. For the mob history we knew, it was neat to see the locations where things occurred firsthand. The things we learned for the first time made it educational and interesting. Great tour!

It is not to be missed!! A great overview of Kansas City mob history!! It is very entertaining & informative. Lots of fun, laughs & information. You won’t be disappointed.

Very fun tour of Kansas City and its gangster past. Even my brother who has lived in Kansas City for several years learned a few things. We were worried Mom was going to get on and off, to see things, but we were on the bus the whole time.

We enjoyed the gangster tour this morning. The tour guide and bus driver were both great. It was informative, entertaining, and enjoyable!

Had a fantastic time! Loaded with history and very entertaining. This is a must do in Kansas City! Through a blend of info & humor you learn how things got done in KC.

Fun, entertaining and knowledgeable tour around the Kansas City gangster era! Lots of buildings, people and areas included on the tour with tons of information you never knew.

Kansas City Gangster Tour

Review Highlights

“ Johnny was easy to pick out because he was wearing his flashy brown pinstriped suit and fedora. ” in 3 reviews

“ Went as a private tour and had a great time. ” in 2 reviews

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Kansas City, MO 64106

Greater Downtown, Northeast

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**Covid Times - Just wear your damn mask** When looking for touristy things to do when visiting KC, Kansas City Gangsters Tour kept popping up on the list of things to do. Highlights: + Tickets are secured via EventBrite for $29/person (Plus whatever fee EB charges for processing). Due to reduced capacity, make sure to purchase tickets ahead of time. + Current schedule is 3x on Saturday for 1.5 hours (10 AM, 12 PM , and 2 PM) + Pick up is in front of Union Station 15 minutes prior to tour departure time. As this is bus tour with no stops, make sure to use the facilities prior to boarding. + Mask up, as they are current still required + Benny (the driver) and Johnny ( guide) had their routine down pat in terms of banter back and forth. The tour is also includes the use of video with a cast of characters. Yes the comedy is a bit corny at times, however, it is a bit of a throw back. + The tour is very informative and the information is presented in a fun way so as you don't feel like you are attending a lecture. One of the major individuals the tour focuses on is political boss T.J Pendercast and his interesting dealings and why there is so much damn concrete in K.C., including the MCI's runways. + You get a "free gift" at the end of the tour, which is a nice little booklet with additional information on the K.C. gangesters. Overall a fun way to tour downtown K.C.

When in Kansas City, after having some barbecue, go on this tour! Kansas City is a fascinating town with a rich history. This is the BEST city tour I've been on. Informative, interesting, interactive and just plain enjoyable. Both Johnny and Ben are entertaining and engaging. Don't miss this tour!!!

Johnny and me

Johnny and Joshua

This was a great tour. Our tour guide was dressed as a 1930's gangster and played the part well. He was funny and engaging. The tour bus was brand new with a TV in the front that would have intermittent clips about different things. I learned a lot about not only the Gangsters of KC, but history as well. This 90 min tour was well worth the time and money.

Amazing tour! Loved the history.

Very engaging and fun tour of Kansas City. I've lived in the area my whole life and learned many new things. The political and social information was delivered in a fun and original way. Learning about the state of the city during the era was eye-opening. Mob bosses everywhere! I recommend the tour for all people interested in history and even those that aren't...you will be surprised!

Good tour. It was interesting and fun. I learned a lot not just KC gangster history but other fun KC facts.

I absolutely loved the tour. Our guide was entertaining and knowledgeable. I got to see all the sights I wanted to see in one tour. It was awesome!

When I planned a girl's weekend in Kansas City, I knew it had to include something involving gangster history. Fortunately, the Kansas City Gangster Tour fit the bill very nicely and in an entertaining way. I called ahead of time to make reservations. The cost is $29 each but you can mention the $4 off coupon on their website to get the discount. Tours are held every Saturday at 1 p.m. We were told to get there by 12:45 because the tour actually leaves at 1p.m. Good to know. The bus usually parks in front of Union Station but on this day, a big back to school event was being set up so the street was blocked to all traffic. Fortunately, I ran into Johnny, our tour guide, in the lobby. He told me where the bus was (side of the building, easy walk). Johnny was easy to pick out because he was wearing his flashy brown pinstriped suit and fedora. All of the other passengers managed to make it to the bus with only a few minutes past 1 p.m. The set up of the tour is like this. Johnny tells you about the city's gangster past as the bus goes by different sites. Interspersed with Johnny's insights, you watch a black and white video with actors dressed from the 30s, talking further about what Johnny talks about. You get to hear all about city boss Tom Pendergast and his control of the city. It is true that the bus does not stop for you to get out. However, since most of the sites are either closed on a Saturday or are now something totally different, there's really no point of doing so. One of the great things about the tour is that it goes all over Kansas City, parts that I doubt I would have known how to find as a tourist. You see quite a lot in only 90 minutes. Kudos, also, to the actor who played Johnny. He had a great rapport with the bus driver and got us involved in his banter. He clearly knows a lot about the time period and was happy to share it. His acting out of the shooting of mobster Johnny Lazio in front of his home (now apartments) was hilarious. If you want to learn all about Kansas City's not so pretty past, and want to see a lot of the city, this is the tour for you. It's well worth it!

Not too bad. We had bought our tickets months ago. A flight cancellation caused us not to make our scheduled tour. No refunds, but they allowed us to apply it to another date. The tour is offered Saturday's at 1pm only. The meeting place is Union Station where an air conditioned bus picks you up. They do accept walk in reservations and this is where things got to be a little disappointing. They oversold the bus and there weren't enough seats. My husband and I were split up and some people had to sit on the edges of already occupied seats. Once in motion, the tour information comes from two sources, The tv at the front of the bus has clips that lead the tour guide (complete with hat and pin striped suit) into a more informative narrative. They point out a a few significant buildings and give some background of what KC was like in the 1920's I found it strange that this tour had no stops to allow photo opportunities. You stay on the bus the entire time. There aren't any bathroom breaks either. It's only a 90 min tour so that isn't such a big deal. I'd recommend this tour for older groups that appreciate not having to walk or frequently load and unload the bus. Get there early so your group can sit together.

Went on the tour today and enjoyed it. Not a blow you away experience but it was it kept my attention and I learned a few things about Kansas City's history and gangster history that I did not know before. They played a video with a lot of interesting old footage and it was interspersed with the spiel of Johnny Holliday who was dressed like a gangster and who did a good job telling the local history.

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The Kansas City connection

Film festival highlights Mob’s role in Las Vegas skim

In the 1995 movie Casino , the Mob’s control of skimming at Las Vegas casinos is exposed when authorities learn about it from a surveillance microphone in a Kansas City grocery store.

That’s not exactly how it happened.

In reality, the bug was planted at a dinner table with bench seats in a now-demolished Kansas City pizzeria, the Villa Capri. Hoping to learn about late-1970s warring Mob factions in this Missouri city on the Kansas border, authorities instead uncovered a bombshell: Kansas City’s Civella crime family illegally controlled a money pipeline originating from inside the Las Vegas Strip’s Tropicana hotel-casino. Blaring in the background at the pizzeria, adding an ironic soundtrack to this underworld setting in a town ripped by targeted Mob explosions and shooting deaths, was the Bee Gees’ disco song “Stayin’ Alive.” (“Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’…”)

In time, authorities discovered that tens of thousands of dollars in untaxed gambling revenue — the skim — unlawfully made its way monthly from Las Vegas casinos to the Civellas and other Mafia organizations in the Midwest. As a result, Mob operatives from Kansas City, Chicago and elsewhere were imprisoned in later court convictions.

These milestones in Mob history took center stage at the two-day Kansas City Mafia Film Festival over the Thanksgiving weekend in the MTH Theater at Crown Center, featuring the documentary films Gangland Wire by Gary Jenkins and Black Hand Strawman: The History of Organized Crime in Kansas City by Terence M. O’Malley. At the November 24 screening, retired FBI agent William Ouseley joined the filmmakers in a question-and-answer session before a capacity crowd.

The Crown Center is near the historic train station where, in June 1933, four law enforcement officers were killed in an unsuccessful attempt by Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd and other outlaws to free a friend being transported to the Leavenworth federal penitentiary in Kansas. The prisoner, Frank “Jelly” Nash, captured in Hot Springs, Arkansas, also was killed at Union Station in what became known as the Kansas City Massacre.

The Depression-era shootout, while important in understanding Kansas City’s lawlessness in those days, was only a backdrop, not the focus of the film festival. The city’s Mob history is what the festival highlighted.

As was clear at the event, the Villa Capri is not the only place in Kansas City of importance to Mob historians. The town is full of significant Mob sites, including a former underworld hangout called The Trap and a residential area once known as “the Mob neighborhood.”

It was in Kansas City, after all, where the notorious Pendergast political machine, entangled with the city’s early organized crime figures, controlled public officials while manipulating the election process from the Jackson County Democratic Club on Main Street. Among other things, this corrupt machine also elevated a failed Kansas City haberdasher named Harry Truman to statewide office, paving his way in the mid-1940s to the U.S. presidency.

During the early Pendergast era, with the police department under machine control, Kansas City became the heartland’s decadent home of Jazz Age gambling dens, brothels and all-night taverns. Pendergast machine leaders and mobsters benefited from the cash flow generated by unchecked vice.

The city’s raucous ways made national news when, in 1950, inside a different Democratic headquarters near a giant picture of Truman, two local Mafia figures were slain in a high-profile bloody shooting. This double homicide created a major stir, according to author Anthony M. DeStefano.

“The outcry over the killings reverberated in Washington, D.C., which had just begun to grapple with the problems of organized crime,” DeStefano writes in his 2018 book Top Hoodlum: Frank Costello, Prime Minister of the Mafia .

Soon, Senator Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., launched a congressional investigation into organized crime, with hearings in cities across the county. While Kefauver’s anticrime efforts succeeded in drawing attention to the Mob, years passed before the Kansas City Mafia family was hobbled, beginning in part with that June 1978 surveillance audio inside the Villa Capri pizzeria.

Another key Mafia site from that year is a residence known as the Marlo house. Located north of downtown across the Missouri River in a quiet neighborhood with weathered wooden privacy fences, the single-story residence once belonged to Josephine Marlo, a Civella relative. It was there in November 1978 that the Tropicana’s Carl Thomas, a then-respected member of the Las Vegas business community, explained to local mobsters how skimming operations worked inside Nevada casinos. He even boasted about some of his skimming exploits. Joining him at the Marlo house that day was another Mob insider from the Tropicana, Joseph Agosto.

What none of them knew is that authorities had bugged the home and were recording the profanity-laced explanations that Thomas gave to the Civella crime lords in attendance. Among them was Nick Civella, head of the organization, who lived nearby in a large corner house with a sloping lawn. The meeting was held at the Marlo house because Civella thought his residence would attract too much law enforcement attention. Civella had been in Apalachin, New York, for the infamous 1957 Mafia summit and later was included in Nevada’s Black Book, barring him from entering casinos across the state.

A transcript of the Marlo house audio is included in Jenkins’ 2016 book Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How the FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos .

On the audio, Thomas is heard talking about how much money is easily removed from casinos and how important it is to have a person under your control working on the inside.

“You skim off forty thousand a week in dollars and grab the forty thousand ‘C’ notes and nobody knows that,” Thomas tells the mobsters. “The guy that reads the scales is your guy. You got to have your guy reading the scales. I bought one of them myself: The scale cost me fifteen thousand, but my guy reads it.”

Thomas, who later regretted talking so much that day, was convicted of skimming but became a government witness in another trial and was released early from prison, ultimately dying in 1993 at age 60 in a single-vehicle rollover in Oregon. A decade earlier, Agosto died of a heart attack at age 61. All the Civella leadership at the Marlo house that day also have died.

Over time, the public’s understanding of Kansas City’s role in American organized crime has grown, with authors and filmmakers such as those at the recent festival providing detailed insights.

Jenkins, an attorney and former detective in the Kansas City Police Department intelligence unit, now operates the Gangland Wire website, which includes actual surveillance audio from those days. For his role in helping topple the Civella crime family, Jenkins is even mentioned by name in Nicholas Pileggi’s 1995 book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas , which was the basis for the Scorsese movie.

That’s not to say everyone understands Kansas City’s importance — or even its location. On the day before the film festival began, New York-based Vogue magazine published a general travel guide on its website in which the writer, Marley Marius, conceded she didn’t know where Missouri is. Marius notes that she thought Missouri “was one of those states jammed shoulder-to-shoulder below the Mason-Dixon line, like Georgia and Alabama.”

“I imagined my flight path to Kansas City International roughly following that to Raleigh-Durham,” she writes, “suggesting, I think, that I had my destination confused with Mississippi.”

Those interested in Mafia history are a lot more familiar with the city. Among this group, there is an expectation that Kansas City will continue to attract interest from historians studying the Midwest Mob’s influence over Las Vegas in the years before corporate control of Las Vegas hotel-casinos, and a series of criminal convictions, pushed the Mob out of the Silver State.

For the most part, the Mob also has been eliminated from Kansas City. As Ouseley notes in his 2011 nonfiction book Mobsters in Our Midst: The Kansas City Crime Family , the criminal syndicate that had “a negative impact on life in Kansas City ended with the Civella era.”

“There are those who sought to perpetuate the organization but they found the climate and conditions no longer favorable,” Ouseley writes. “The Civella power bases — political influence, union influence, monopoly of gambling operations and others that made the Outfit what it was — are gone.”

Ouseley, a former FBI Organized Crime Squad supervisor in Kansas City, also wrote 2008’s Open City: True Story of the KC Crime Family, 1900-1950 .

During its heyday before Nick Civella’s death from cancer in 1983, the Kansas City Mafia was an active fixture on the American criminal scene, as O’Malley notes in Black Hand/Strawman , a 2011 companion book to his documentary film. Several years ago, O’Malley, a Kansas City attorney, appeared in an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations , discussing the city’s Mob history. On the Travel Channel’s website where the episode is posted, Kansas City is described as “the BBQ capital of the world.” O’Malley and Bourdain were filmed inside one of the town’s notable barbecue restaurants, B.B.’s Lawnside Bar-B-Q.

A single sentence in O’Malley’s companion book sums up what that television episode also addressed — the Kansas City Mob’s former prominence.

“When asked to speak on the subject of organized crime,” O’Malley writes, “I often will tell audiences that whether Kansas City likes it or not — for better or worse — it had one of the best Mafias in the United States.”

Larry Henry is a veteran print and broadcast journalist. He served as press secretary for Nevada Governor Bob Miller, and was political editor at the Las Vegas Sun and managing editor at KFSM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Northwest Arkansas. Henry taught journalism at Haas Hall Academy in Bentonville, Arkansas, and now is the headmaster at the school’s campus in Rogers, Arkansas. The Mob in Pop Culture blog appears monthly.

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libbie bond

Kansas City Gangster Tour – 74/100

#73 – Kansas City Gangster Tour 30 W Pershing Rd, Kansas City, MO 64108

Cost: $$ Good for: Learning the colorful past of Kansas City. Pro Tip: Bring cash to tip the tour guides and arrive early to explore Union Station .

The Kansas City Gangster Tour explores the history of gang activity in the early 1900s up until the 1980s. The 90-minute bus tour is full of interesting facts, fun sights and corny jokes.

About the Kansas City Gangster Tour

For $30, you can enjoy a 90-minute bus tour around Kansas City that explores the history of Kansas City’s mob scene. The tour begins at Union Station and covers all the main areas in Kansas City, including the River Market, Downtown Kansas City, the Country Club Plaza and more. The tours are held by present-day Kansas City “gangsters” each Saturday at 10am and 1pm.

The guides did a wonderful job sharing the history of Kansas City in a fun way. They’re dressed in suits and fedoras and speak in stereotypical gangster accents. The cracked some pretty cheesy jokes, but a majority of the audience seemed to enjoy that.

History Covered on the Kansas City Gangster Tour

The tour focuses mostly on political boss, Tom Pendergast . Pendergast ruled Kansas City’s political sphere in the 1920s, using his large network to help elect politicians – sometimes earning 95% of the votes. He even launched the political career of former President, Harry S. Truman.

Pendergast’s main business was concrete, which he used to finance is other projects. Through his influence and money, he was contracted to pour concrete for most of Kansas City’s federal buildings, including City Hall, the Jackson County Court House and the Kansas City Power and Light building.

Pendergast had a way with local police allowed booze to flow throughout the Prohibition, and Kansas City became known as Paris of the Plans. Apparently when asked how he justified ignoring Prohibition, Pendergast said, “The people are thirsty”, which is now the motto behind Tom’s Town Distillery .

Though Pendergast was a gangster and law breaker, he did a lot to help Kansas Citians. He kept the Great Depression at bay in Kansas City and helped many get and keep jobs.

During the tour you’ll ride past Pendergast’s former office, home and church. The tour also stops by the scenes of major mob crimes, like the Union Station Massacre,  where you can supposedly still see bullet holes in the side of the building.

It could have been more interactive, as you don’t get off the bus for the whole 90 minutes. Overall, the tour shed light on some major times and events in Kansas City’s history. xx, Libbie.

Kansas City Mob Tour 17+

Gary jenkins, designed for ipad.

• 2.4 • 9 Ratings

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Description.

Take your own guided tour of the sites where Kansas City Mobsters from the 1930s to the present time lived, died, killed, gambled, socialized and went to church. Added bonus - see clips from the documentary films, Blackhand Strawman and Gangland Wire.

Version 3.0

This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon. Updated app version

Ratings and Reviews

Disappointing.

Just a list of locations and Maps. Sold itself as a tour, but doesn’t even tell you where to start or give you an order. Wish I had read the reviews before I spent money on this. Now I have a carful if cranky people.

I discovered this app from the gangland wire podcast. I work nights as a machinist in Lee’s summit and listen to the podcast with all my coworkers religiously. We went on the tour last week and it was really detailed and interesting! 10/10 can’t wait for more stuff to be added 👍

Videos crash iPad. App needs more work. Many photos are missing. Mostly crashes. iOS 11.1.1

App Privacy

The developer, GARY JENKINS , has not provided details about its privacy practices and handling of data to Apple.

No Details Provided

The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update.

Information

English, Dutch, French, German, Italian

• Developer Website
• App Support

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Up to six family members can use this app with family sharing enabled., you might also like.

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‘his history is notorious’: kcq tracks mafia connections at northland country club.

“What’s your KC Q” is a joint project of the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star. Readers submit questions, the public votes on which questions to answer, and our team of librarians and reporters dig deep to uncover the answers.

Have a question you want to ask? Submit it now »

By Dan Kelly | [email protected]

If you are familiar with Kansas City’s violent mafia history , you know the names Charlie Binaggio and Nick Civella.

But Eddie Osadchey?

Doesn’t sound like a mobster’s name, does it? In fact, to a grade-school boy overhearing his father’s conversations in 1963 or so, the name evoked visions of the family’s many Irish acquaintances. O’Brien, O’Neill, O’Satchy?

So no alarm bells went off when my father said he was doing some bookkeeping to help out his friend Eddie Osadchey, who ran the neighborhood country club we frequented. My dad, William J. “Bill” Kelly, worked for TWA, always describing his job as accounting, and he didn’t mind lending a friend a helping hand.

Only in this case, his hand might have been dipping into some hot water.

Osadchey — better known as Eddie Spitz in those days — had been as mobbed up as they came in Kansas City during the 1940s, serving as one of boss Binaggio’s key operators (until Binaggio and Charlie Gargotta were gunned down on April 5, 1950). By the 1960s, Civella had taken over as local boss, and Osadchey was linked to him, too.

The story of Eddie Osadchey is key in responding to a question to “What’s Your KCQ?” from Richard Taegel. “What’s Your KCQ?” is an ongoing series in which The Star and the Kansas City Public Library partner to answer readers’ queries about our region.

Taegel’s query, edited for length:

“Can you explain the nefarious existence of the Mirror Lake Town and Country Club? … I heard rumors at the time that the club had some connection with the greater Kansas City mob scene. … And whatever became of Mirror Lake after the ’60s?”

Those mob rumors were true.

“Osadchey goes way back, had a lot of connections and all sorts of the early history of the outfit,” William Ouseley said recently.

Ouseley ought to know. He not only worked the local mob for the FBI from the 1960s through the 1980s, he also has written two books about it ( Open City: True Story of the KC Crime Family, 1900-1950 and Mobsters in Our Midst: The Kansas City Crime Family ).

“In gambling, he was one of the primary movers and shakers for the mob even though he was not a member, being non-Italian. But he was a very trusted person.

“He was a principal guy who put together the (horse racing) wire service for (Al) Capone’s people representing the mob here. It was their franchise. His history is notorious.”

Turns out the Taegels (eight kids) lived only a few blocks from the Kellys (four kids) in Sherwood Estates, then a relatively new subdivision in the Northland. Taegel, like me, attended St. Gabriel, the Catholic grade school that was within walking distance of our homes and happened to sit right next to the club in question.

With just a swimming pool and a clubhouse, it was called the Sherwood Estates Country Club when our family moved there in the late 1950s, but it became the Mirror Lake Town Club when Osadchey bought it in 1961. He already owned the Mirror Lake Country Club, which had a golf course and a fishing lake, a few miles away near Parkville.

Young Richard Taegel indicated he worked at the Town Club starting in 1967, doing odd jobs and busing tables for 50 cents an hour (“For a 14-year-old, I thought that was big money at the time”). Hired by Osadchey’s son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Jane Osadchey, Taegel occasionally landed busing gigs at the Parkville club, too.

To answer his primary question: There wasn’t much “nefarious” about the Mirror Lake Town Club (though the Country Club was a somewhat different matter). According to both Ouseley and fellow local mob expert Gary Jenkins , the Town Club’s Bill Osadchey had no connections to the outfit.

Moreover, by the 1960s, Eddie Osadchey had put his mob activities behind him — although not necessarily his mob relationships.

“He was never a factor during Nick Civella’s reign,” Ouseley said.

“You never heard his name about anything,” said Jenkins, who worked for the intelligence unit of the Kansas City police starting in the 1970s and now is co-host of the “ Gangland Wire Crime Stories ” true crime podcast.

That’s not to say Eddie Osadchey was a Boy Scout during his Mirror Lake days — he had several legal scrapes. But it was nothing like his life before 1950.

The Kefauver hearings

Osadchey was born in Kiev in 1906. He and his Russian Jewish family arrived in the United States in 1909, with his name appearing as “Avrum Osadzy” on the SS Russia’s passenger list. They immediately settled in Kansas City, where his father worked as a blacksmith.

Before and after serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Osadchey operated local nightclubs (including the College Inn on 12th Street, Club Imperial on Oak, the Dump on McGee Trafficway and the notorious Last Chance Saloon that straddled the state line). Osadchey also reputedly ran Binaggio’s local gambling operations and was said to be involved in Binaggio’s liquor distribution business (he was sentenced to 30 days in the Clay County jail in 1932 on a Prohibition act violation).

But by all accounts, he was not involved in the seamier side of the local outfit’s operations — murder, prostitution, etc.

“I have never done a thing wrong in my life outside a little gambling,” he told the Kefauver Senate committee that investigated organized crime in Kansas City and beyond in 1950 after the public and bloody murders of Binaggio and Gargotta.

His appearance at the Kefauver hearings turned Osadchey into a national figure almost overnight.

It’s possible that my father knew none of this notorious stuff when he was helping his friend in the early 1960s. But given that Dad was an avid reader of The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times, which had detailed Osadchey’s testimony and mob connections, I suspect he had at least an inkling.

Of course, Dad wouldn’t have talked to us kids about his friend’s seedy past, just as he didn’t discuss his World War II experiences until decades later.

Most important to me was that Dad appeared to like Eddie Osadchey, and he didn’t like all that many people. But then, everybody seemed to like Eddie Osadchey.

Even federal officials at the Kefauver hearings.

Rudolph Halley, the committee’s chief counsel, advised Osadchey “to get a good lawyer and by a good one I mean one who is thinking of your interest and not trying to build up a fee in a criminal prosecution for you, an honest one.”

Sen. Charles Tobey of New Hampshire said: “You have got a bright mind and could go places in legitimate business. What intrigues you about crooked business that makes you go into it and bring in and embroil a good woman and a good son? … What is there in it for you? What is there in it, dear friend? Tell us, will you, please?”

Osadchey basically replied that he was just trying to make money and concluded, “I am out of the gambling business. I am through with it.”

No evidence suggests Osadchey broke that pledge.

The Civella connection

Before the Kefauver hearings, Osadchey’s name rarely appeared in The Star or any other newspapers. After them, the eyes of law enforcement were upon him. He was a marked man.

Federal tax liens totaling more than $50,000 were filed against Osadchey in 1952 for his activities of 1943 through 1945. He was prosecuted on a relatively minor federal charge in the late summer of 1964 for not paying taxes on liquor sold at Mirror Lake, eventually being sentenced to five years’ probation. The Star covered the case and the trial in some detail.

Seeing those stories for the first time now puts my father’s bookkeeping work for Osadchey in a new light. Was Dad somehow involved in something illegal? If so, it certainly would have been without his knowledge because he was the most honest man the world has ever known. If a store clerk had given him 10 cents too much change, he would have driven across town to return it.

So the real questions are when did he learn of Mirror Lake’s illegal scheme and what did he do at that point?

Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but the late summer of 1964 also was when my father abruptly decided to move our family out of the Northland and clear across town. Eddie Osadchey’s name never came up in our new house.

He did return to the national news in 1971, however, when Chiefs Hall of Famer Johnny Robinson — still an active player then — bought the Mirror Lake Town Club, signing a promissory note for $275,000 to be paid to Osadchey. That drew the interest of the NFL, and the Kansas City Crime Commission investigated.

Frank Maudlin, the crime commission’s managing director, claimed that the then 64-year-old Osadchey’s association with organized crime figures was “a continuing sort of thing,” citing Civella’s arrest the previous October on a federal gambling indictment. Federal agents found him playing golf (with his wife) on the ninth hole of the Mirror Lake Country Club.

Civella previously had drawn attention to Osadchey and Mirror Lake in 1959, when the club was the venue of a party celebrating Civella’s 25th wedding anniversary. It drew hundreds of guests, including local politicians and alleged mobsters. Maudlin, a highway trooper at the time, wrote down the license plate numbers on 139 cars parked outside the club that night.

U.S. deputy marshals also had served Civella with a subpoena at the Mirror Lake Country Club in 1963 in connection with a gambling and racketeering investigation. On that occasion, Osadchey had greeted the marshals and denied that Civella was there, but when the officers left briefly and returned, they caught Osadchey and Civella chatting.

So he wasn’t the perfect role model.

The neighborhood

Eddie Osadchey also wasn’t our neighborhood’s only connection with alleged mobsters. It seemed as if half the families living in Sherwood Estates had Italian heritage, almost all of them upstanding citizens with kids who were among our best friends.

But a rumor spread that the father of a family less than a block away from us was a Mafia hit man.

That didn’t prevent my sister from walking to St. Gabriel with the daughters or my two brothers and me from playing almost daily games of backyard whiffle ball with the three sons. They always won. Always.

I also remember getting into a schoolboy fight with the youngest of those sons, and I’m pretty sure I was on the losing end of that, too.

In retrospect, that might have been just as well. Ouseley recognized the family’s name and confirmed the father’s reputation.

“He was a main figure in the organization and had the reputation of having done murders,” he said.

Ouseley helped arrest the man as part of the FBI’s Operation Strawman that investigated the skimming of $280,000 from the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. A 1983 conviction resulted in a 20-year sentence.

The Mirror Lake clubs themselves had happier outcomes, although neither still exists.

The Town Club was purchased by a church in 1984 and has since operated as the Sherwood Bible Church and Sherwood Family Recreation Center. In 1973, Osadchey sold the Country Club, which became the Windbrook Golf Course. Some of the original Mirror Lake holes are now part The Deuce course at The National.

As for Eddie Osadchey, he died June 27, 1989, at the age of 83. His obituary described him as “a former golf and country club owner” who “lived in this area for 80 years.”

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 HISTORICAL TOURS

Chasing after freedom,   816-286-5298.

Erik Stafford

Erik Stafford, born May 1969 is a native of Kansas City MO. He is married to Carla Stafford together they have three kids. He attended Raytown South High School and graduated in the class of 1987. After high school, Erik remained in Kansas City to attend Penn Valley Community College where he discovered history. Erik received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from Central Missouri State University.

He then returned to Kansas City and taught social studies at Genesis School for three years. At Genesis School, he and his students gave tours of the historic sites in the Kansas City area. It was also during this time that Erik published his first book of poetry Native Life which is a collection of poems and pictures.  Erik received his Master of Arts Degree in Business at Webster University in Kansas City MO.

In 2009, Erik became sole proprietor of the Kansas City Tour Company and began conducting tours of the historic sites in the Kansas City area and creating interactive, historic slide show presentations, that allow people to make the connections between the past, present, and future through history. In May of 2017, Erik published Script From 12th to 18th Street a condensed, factual account of Jim Crow Segregation in the Heart of America. The New York Times featured Erik in their article On a Civil Rights Trail Essential Sights and Indelible Detours, August 6, 2018.

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Your ultimate guide to tours of Kansas City

Explore the city of fountains through its history, food, drink, and art on these tour experiences..

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Bop around our beautiful city with these tours.

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Whether you’re a lifelong Kansas Citian longing to embrace your inner tourist, or you have a limited amount of time in the City of Fountains, here are 20+ tours guaranteed to show you the sights you want to see.

Note: Price estimates are based on individual adult rates available at the time of publishing. Check each company’s website to see current pricing.

Kansas City Fun Tours | $10-$22 per person | See the most popular sites while riding on an air-conditioned trolley.

Kansas City Segway Tours | Prices vary | Check out parks, museums, art, and even breweries while gliding around town on a Segway.

Kansas City Museum History Tours | $0-$10 per person | Learn about the Long family with this one-hour guided tour of Corinthian Hall.

Eat and drink

KC Beer Tour | $300-$350 per group | Visit three craft breweries with up to 24 of your fellow beer lovers.

KC BBQ Experience | Free | Download the app and check in to 100+ regional restaurants offering the classic KC cuisine.

Taste of Kansas City Food Tours | Prices vary | Choose the Original Foodie Tour, or switch it up with the Prohibition Tour checking out KC’s speakeasy style bars.

Kansas City Winery Tour | $83 - $98 per person | Wine not? Visit local wineries with your besties with this guided tour.

All in on history

KC Rainbow Tour | Free | Learn about KC’s LGBTQ+ history with this self-guided app.

KC Gangster Tour | $35 per person | See the melodrama of mob homes + hangouts, turf wars, and infamous crimes like the Union Station massacre.

The Arabia Steamboat Museum | $0-$16.50 per person | Hear the legendary tale of the loss + discovery of the Steamboat Arabia and see pieces of its 200 tons of cargo.

River City Civil Rights Tour | $21 per person | See history unfold along the Streetcar line with guidance from Erik Stafford.

Art is all around

Graffiti and Murals Walking Tour | $250 for up to three people | Explore the Crossroads Arts District’s most interesting + elaborate murals and graffiti art.

Be Bop & Beyond Walking Tour | $21.99 per person | Stroll the Historic 18th and Vine District while learning about Kansas Citians who blazed a trail for civil rights.

Self Guided Crossroads Walking Tour | Free | Stroll the neighborhood at your own pace while checking out murals + graffiti art.

Kansas City Instagram Tour | $60 per person | Looking for the best photogenic spots around KC? This tour has IG-worthy destinations from food + drink to local parks.

Get ghosted

Kansas City Ghosts & Gangsters Tour | $60 per person | This tour takes you to haunted buildings + introduces you to various characters from the city’s past.

The Elms Hotel & Spa Paranormal Package | $25 per person | Get your ghost on at this haunted hotel.

Haunted Taxi Ghost Tours | Prices vary | Tour the region’s spookiest sites, including hotels + cemeteries.

Alexander Majors House Ghost Tours | $150-$375 for 15-30 people | Hear the strange events + ghosts who are said to haunt the rooms of this historic KC home.

What did we miss? If you know a tour that’s not on the list, guide us in the right direction using this survey .

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An Interview with Former Kansas City Police Officer Gary Jenkins

Joining us today is the former Kansas City Police Sergeant and owner of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins.

Gary investigated organized crime in Kansas City for 13 years during his 25 year spell in the police force, and has since created two apps, and produced a feature length documentary on the mob war in Kansas City.

Gary, thank you for taking the time out to talk with us.

The NCS: Having spent 13 years of your life investigating organized crime you must have experienced a lot of events. Which event most sticks out in your mind to date?

Gary Jenkins: I think the most memorable night was Valentine’s Day of 1979. After months of technical and physical surveillance, we were divided into joint FBI/KCPD search warrant teams. I was assigned to help search Carl “Tuffy” DeLuna’s home. Other Intelligence Unit members were assigned to search the homes of Nick Civella, Carl Civella, Pete Tamburello, Charlie Moretina, Vince Abbot, Joe Ragusa and the office of Carl Caruso. These were homes we had driven by thousands of times. Now we got to go inside to search for evidence of skimming from Las Vegas casinos. And at Tuffy’s home, we found detailed records of the skim, visits to Las Vegas and other Mob activities over the past several years.

The NCS: Since leaving the force you started a website called GanglandWire.com , where did this idea come from and what vision did you have for it to begin with?

Gary Jenkins: I knew I needed a web presence to connect with potential purchasers of my documentary film, Gangland Wire. My vision was not to just sell the DVD, but I wanted to blog about my experiences and educate the public in the history of organized crime. I believe that history must be learned to avoid repeating. While the salad days of the La Cosa Nostra is romanticized, the actuality is they are self seeking bullies who destroy society. In Kansas City, we had our first grass roots urban development called the River Quay. This was the turn of the century downtown of Kansas City. As the 1970s saw white flight from the city’s core, a visionary named Marion Trozzolo refurbished these old buildings. He provided inexpensive rent to artists, boutiques, restaurants and other small businesses. The KC Mob members were jealous and wanted to open strip clubs and discos in this area. The resulting conflict created headlines. Suburban baby boomers read about mob killings and night club explosions related to this area. Soon, they stopped coming and the area died. We did not have another similar area develop close to downtown until the 1990s.

The NCS: Putting together a feature length documentary must have been an exciting time for you, especially with actual audio obtained from mobsters. How hard was it to get the film produced and then published?

Gary Jenkins: I lived the actual story, but getting to final production was a long difficult process. I wanted to tell this story ever since I read Nicholas Pileggi’s Casino and even more after I saw the Scorsese film.

I was mentioned in Pileggi’s book because I was part of a search warrant team that found the DeLuna records. These records were mentioned in Casino. The KC Underboss, Tuffy DeLuna, kept detailed records of the casino skim distribution and he documented his trips to Las Vegas and Chicago to deal with Casino business. After watching the film, myself, and the other members of the Strawman Task Force wanted to tell the world the real Kansas City part of this important story. Pileggi and Scorsese had a great film, but we believed they focused too much on the violence of Tony Spilotro (film name Nicky Santoro) and the failed marriage of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (film name Ace Rothstein).

We believed the important story was the national influence of the La Cosa Nostra Midwest crime families over the Teamsters Union and Las Vegas Casinos and Nevada politics. Once I learned I could obtain and copy all the audio from the various wiretaps and hidden microphones, I found this film became easy to get produced. I had many Kansas City filmmakers wanting part of this action (to use the vernacular). Because I wanted to retain editorial control and tell this story in my own manner, I directed and edited most of this film. I had completed and released 2 other Civil War era documentary films by this time and believed I was up for the job. Assembling a crew was easy, Kansas City has a large film community and I had already developed relationships with key folks. For example, I have used the same sound studio for all three films. Craig Rettmer of RC Sound, stepped up his game in placing music in the right places and obtaining local jazz musicians to help with the sound track. Anthony Ladesich filmed beautiful interviews with his SLR camera. In Kansas City, we found old warehouse spaces to use as backdrops. We travelled to Las Vegas for about 10 interviews.

Once I cut this story together, I was quickly recruited by a local theatre for a special 2 week run. As with most independent film producers, I use a variety of film outlets to get this important documentary to the public. The most important and accessible is Amazon rental. I am still amazed at how many streaming rentals we have each month. I continue to sell the actual DVD from my website. But, as most folks know, digital downloads is the new media. I believe the DVD will go the way of VHS and hard cover and paper books.

The NCS: Just recently you have also brought a mob tour app to Google Play and the Apple Store, what does this app offer people?

Gary Jenkins: First, I wanted the Kansas City Mob Tour app to take the user on a self guided tour of the actual Kansas City sites where the La Cosa Nostra has and continues to live, play, eat, drink, dance, gamble, kill and be killed. I use a map function to guide users to the actual address. I use a text and photo page to tell the story of that location and either photos of what it looks like today or what this location looked like back during the time the story occurred. I have sites from the 1970s-80s back to the 1930s. I also make recommendations for good Italian food. Finally, for each general area, I have made a link to a short video in which the viewer is shown a story about that area. The Kansas City Mob tour app can be used by someone from outside Kansas City for an informative virtual tour of our mob history.

The NCS: There have been some very interesting decades over the years when it comes to the mob. If you had a chance to live or revisit one of those decades, which would you choose?

Gary Jenkins: I would go back to the 1930’s and prohibition. I want to see what life was like when the Mob was an integral part of government, society and the community.

The NCS: If you had the chance to sit face to face with a mobster from the past, and ask them questions, which one would you choose to talk with, and why?

Gary Jenkins: I would like to talk to the late Nick Civella. Nick was the Boss from the early 1950s until he died in 1983. He was at the famous Applachin meeting. He probably took part in the murders of Charlie Binnagio and Charlie Gargotta. These murders caused the creation of the Kefauver Senate hearings and the first real examination of the La Cosa Nostra in the United States. Nick obtained control of the Teamsters Union boss, Roy Williams in Kansas City.

Nick installed Joe Agosto in the Tropicana casino and created a stream of skim money separate from the Chicago dominated skim from the Stardust. In other words he was a quiet behind the scenes but integral player in the Mob on a national level for 30 years. I want to know the real stories behind his reign.

The NCS: Other than producing documentaries, creating apps and having a successful 25 year spell in the police force, is there are anything else outside of this that you take part in?

Gary Jenkins: I recently created Gangland Wire Crime Stories . This is my true crime podcast. At the present time, I have eleven (11) episodes playing. You can find it on my Kansas City Mob tour app, my website www.ganglandwire.com , itunes or Blubrry.com. I tell stories from my experiences as a member of the Kansas City Police Department Intelligence Unit. I have received a lot of interest, if that interest is maintained, I will start telling my policeman’s perception of other important crimes. I have already started some Freedom of Information Act requests about a gang that robbed banks by setting off bombs at the local police station while they robbed the local bank. The landed in Kansas City and were interrupted while plotting to kidnap for ransom a local society matron.

Oh, and I practice law, so if you get a traffic ticket in Kansas City, Better Call Gary.

The NCS: What has your most successful achievement been over the years?

Gary Jenkins: Probably getting and staying sober, but in the area of my more commercial and popular life events, being selected for the KCPD Intelligence Unit, graduating law school and passing the Missouri Bar rank way up there.

The NCS: Is there anything in the pipeline that you have planned for the future that you can share with the NCS readers?

Gary Jenkins: Right now, I am focusing on my Gangland Wire True Crime podcast. I am flirting with entering a Missouri Film Society screenplay contest with a local mob story. I just downloaded a screenwriting program and I have three pages done. My story blends the exploits of my best informant with an actual mob story of the gang that could not detonate a bomb.

The NCS: Gary, we wish you all the best of luck with your site and future plans.

Gary Jenkins: Thank you for being here for me. The National Crime Syndicate is am important website in our area of study. I particularly like it that you and a few others have embraced the new digital technology via social media. If we want to carry this important history to future generations, we must adapt to the new media.

You can follow Gary on Twitter: @jenkslaw

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