Kenosha News

History Mystery: Businessman held in strange kidnapping

BY DIANE GILES

dgiles@kenoshanews.com

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The last History Mystery question: What Kenosha businessman was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1932?

Answer: Edward “Jess” Minkowski was a “soft-drink” parlor operator in Kenosha during Prohibition. He was kidnapped outside of his nightclub/restaurant Jess’s Place at 63rd Street and 14th Avenue.

On Sept. 26, 1932, about 9 p.m. as he was walking toward his club from his car, a man identified himself as a federal agent and asked him to get into a car with him.

Minkowski, 44, had been carrying some boxes of playing cards, and he went inside the bar and left them with a bartender. He came back out and joined the supposed agent in the backseat of a car.

They drove for about 10 minutes to a place on the outskirts of the city, where a second car was waiting and guns were drawn.

The kidnappers blindfolded Minkowski and took him to a house in Aurora, Ill. They stripped Minkowski down to his skivvies and handcuffed him to a bed.

When Minkowski hadn’t returned to his nightclub or his home on Tuesday morning and his car was still parked outside the club, people got concerned.

$25,000 ransom

The kidnappers called Jess’s Place and demanded a $25,000 ransom.

Minkowski later told the FBI that he informed his kidnappers he could only get access to about $800, which they could get from his brother Joe in Kenosha.

When one of the kidnappers placed a second call to the tavern on Tuesday from a phone in Glen Ellyn, Ill., he was apprehended, as the calls had been traced.

The remaining kidnappers told Minkowski of their cohort’s arrest and offered a strange arrangement. They would release the businessman if he would arrange to pay them $4,000 at a later time.

Early Wednesday morning, the men drove Minkowski to Lake Geneva and released him. He took a cab back to Kenosha.

After notifying the local authorities of his release, Minkowski could not identify the kidnapper that had been caught.

Strange turn

This is where the story gets a little weird.

Four days later Minkowski heard from the kidnappers, and one came into his club.

Minkowski went into the dining hall portion of his business and gave the man $1,800.

If Minkowski knew the kidnappers, he never admitted it. And no one in the family ever told people about the ransom payment until 67 years later.

‘Extra’ coverage

The event was covered with an “Extra” edition of the Kenosha Evening News on the day after his kidnapping. More of the story was obtained by the family years later through the Freedom of Information Act, as the FBI held documents, including Minkowski’s first-person account of the event.

A year after Minkowski’s ordeal, J. Edgar Hoover requested in a memo that the case be reopened and agents interview Minkowski as Hoover suspected the culprits were part of a major kidnapping ring.

No one was ever convicted in the case.

Minkowski eventually was the founder of the Kenosha National Bank, and when the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition, Minkowski established a major wholesale beer business which evolved into Kenosha Liquor Co.

This week’s mystery: Fifty years ago, the Burr Oak School was one of four county schools that were consolidated to make what new school?

For previous History Mystery articles please visit the Kenosha News website and the webpage www.kenoshanews.com/news/historymystery.php.

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