Bootleggers, gamblers, racketeers and a boxing champ lined up at a St. Paul hospital offering to donate blood to keep “Dapper Dan” Hogan alive on Dec. 4, 1928.
That Tuesday had started off routinely enough for the popular owner of the Green Lantern Saloon — the unofficial Wabasha Street headquarters of St. Paul’s thriving underworld. For 15 years, Hogan had served as the go-between for corrupt cops and criminals.
Hogan, 48, had just finished a late breakfast and was heading downtown about 11:30 a.m. from his St. Paul home on W. 7th Street — near today’s entrance ramp to Interstate Hwy. 35E — when he pressed his foot on the starter to back his coupe out of the garage.
“A short time afterwards there was a loud explosion,” the Minneapolis Morning Tribune reported. “When neighbors and members of the family entered the garage they found Hogan unconscious in the seat of the car, his right leg nearly torn off, and bleeding profusely.”
