Joseph Saltis

Who was Joseph Saltis?

Joseph "Polack Joe" Saltis [Soltis] was an early Prohibition gangster who, who with Frank McErlane, controlled bootlegging in the Southwest Side of Chicago, Illinois.

Originally a Hungarian immigrant who had become a saloon owner in Joliet, Illinois, Saltis moved to Chicago with the announcement of the Volstead Act in 1920. With the assistance of John "Dingbat" O'Berta, a candidate for the Illinois State Senate, began supplying illegal alcohol to Chicago's speakeasies and by 1925 Saltis effectively controlled the Southwest Side. Saltis, by now extremely wealthy from bootlegging, purchased a residence in Winter, Wisconsin which, employing over half of the town's sixty citizens, later tried to have the town named Saltisville in the town's general election but failed by one vote. Saltis also built the Barker Lake Golf Course in Winter.

During this time, Saltis remained on good terms with his South Side neighbor Al Capone, whose Chicago Outfit began dominating Chicago's bootlegging soon after his arrival in the early 1920s. Indeed, by the mid-1920s, only the Saltis-McErlane organization remained independent from the eight satellite gangs under Capone's control.