Obscure Local History #6: Grand Avenue Anti-Union Machine Gun Vigilante c. 1935

[Ford dealership on Grand Avenue, c. 1934, right next to Wheeler Buick.] 

Here's an unfortunately a propos anecdote, again from the book Grand Avenue: The Renaissance of an Urban Street by Billie Young and David Lanegran. It combines two trends that are alive and well in the present day: anti-union, anti-left fear-mongering and gun-toting vigilante terror.  It all took place on placid Grand Avenue, back in the "auto dealership" era of the street.

Here's the excerpt:

Grand Avenue in the 1930s and 1930s was St. Pauls' automobile row, where cars whose names have been forgotten could be purchased... 

One Grand Avenue car dealer became a st. Paul hero. He was Ned Warren who had the Warren-Given Buick agency at 734 Grand in the building that present houses the White Lily Restaurant. The teamster's union, which was believed to be associated with organized crime at the time, threatened Warren, and he responded by setting up a .30 caliber machine gun on the roof of his business, right over the front door on Grand Avenue. The community was so impressed with his show of courage and defiance that he was named Commissioner of Public Safety, the civilian official who served at the head of the St. Paul police department in reform-mayor Mark Gehan's administration.

For the record, "reform mayor" Mark Gehan was the pro-business mayor who succeeded labor champion William Mahoney, a Farmer-Labor socialist and long-time publisher of the Union Advocate newspaper. Mahoney, who also ran on a law and order "reform" platform, served as mayor for two years before being defeated by Gehan, a candidate supported by a coalition of pro-business Democrat and Chamber of Commerce types.