Gopher Gang

Gopher Gang

Hell's Kitchen photographed by Jacob Riis before 1890; this contextual image does not depict identified Gopher members
Also Known As	Gophers
Origins
Founding Location	Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City
Territory	Hell's Kitchen Manhattan's West Side from West 14th to West 42nd streets, between Seventh and Eleventh avenues
Locations	Battle Row, West 39th Street between Tenth and Eleventh avenues
Lineage
Subsets	Parlor Mob Gorillas Rhodes Gang
Profile
Structure	Loose federation of neighborhood crews
Ethnicity	Predominantly Irish American
Membership	Up to 500 (Herbert Asbury's estimate)
Activities	Armed robbery Burglary Extortion Illegal gambling Assault Murder
Politics
Leader	One Lung Curran Owney Madden (later faction)
Notable Members	Newburg Gallagher Marty Brennan Stumpy Malarkey Goo Goo Knox Happy Jack Mulraney
Allies	Hudson Dusters Battle Row Ladies' Social and Athletic Club
Activity
Status	Defunct
Years Active	Late 1890s–mid-1910s
Founded Date	Late 1890s
Dissolved Date	Mid-1910s (fragmentation)
Dissolution Cause	Police suppression Arrests and imprisonment of leaders Factionalization

The Gopher Gang, commonly called the Gophers, was a predominantly Irish-American street-gang federation based in Hell's Kitchen around the turn of the twentieth century. The organization controlled much of Manhattan's West Side between West 14th and West 42nd streets and became one of the neighborhood's best-known pre-Prohibition gangs. Its membership and leadership fluctuated, and later sources sometimes treat separate neighborhood crews or the faction led by Owney Madden as if they were a single centrally directed organization.

Organization and territory

Asbury described the Gophers as a turbulent association whose leaders rarely retained authority for long. He placed their territory from Seventh to Eleventh avenues and from West 14th to West 42nd streets, and estimated that they could mobilize no more than 500 men. A favored meeting place was Mallet Murphy's saloon on “Battle Row,” West 39th Street between Tenth and Eleventh avenues.

Asbury attributed the gang's name to members hiding in basements and cellars. Because that explanation appeared in a colorful retrospective history published in 1928, it is best treated as a traditional account rather than a proven contemporary origin story. The Parlor Mob, Gorillas and Rhodes Gang were smaller Hell's Kitchen crews described as owing allegiance to the Gophers. Asbury also identified the Hudson Dusters as allies—not rivals—and described the Battle Row Ladies' Social and Athletic Club, popularly called the Lady Gophers, as a supporting women's organization.

Crime and contemporary reporting

The Gophers were associated with robbery, burglary, intimidation, illegal gambling and armed violence. Contemporary newspapers used “Gopher Gang” as an identifiable organization name. In October 1910, the New-York Tribune called the group “notorious” while reporting that approximately twelve Gophers rushed a West 23rd Street dance hall after threatening a special patrolman; two gang members were shot during the confrontation.

Another 1910 case involved Newburg Gallagher and Marty Brennan. Gallagher admitted shooting bartender William Lennon after a prolonged personal feud, but his confession did not save Brennan from a lengthy sentence. Such cases establish individual acts and affiliations but do not prove that every crime later attributed to the Gophers was ordered by the organization.

Leadership and decline

Asbury named Newburg Gallagher, Marty Brennan, Stumpy Malarkey, Goo Goo Knox, One Lung Curran and Happy Jack Mulraney among prominent Gophers. Goo Goo Knox later helped organize the allied Hudson Dusters. Curran led several subordinate neighborhood crews, while Madden assembled a more centralized faction from former Gophers during the early 1910s.

Madden's faction earned money from theft, stickups, loft burglaries and intimidation. After the 1914 murder of former Gopher Patsy Doyle, Madden was convicted and imprisoned. A 1923 New York Times report still described him as a “Gopher Gang chief” when announcing his parole. Police suppression, internal factionalism and the imprisonment of leading members had already fragmented the street gang by the middle of the 1910s.

The Gophers were an earlier expression of Irish-American gang activity on Manhattan's West Side, but available sources do not establish direct organizational continuity between them and the later Dunn-McGrath Gang, Spillane Gang or Westies.