Please excuse/ignore our conversation. Sometimes us small town folks forget that the only real LCN was in New York or Chicago.
The NYC folk/buffs don't consider anything outside of there to be true cn
I know plenty of New York people that recognize LCN outside of NY/CHI/PHILLY. And for those New Yorkers who don't recognize any LCN from other, smaller families...so be it. Their power was real and widespread. Families like Pittsburgh controlled all of Western PA, Northeast Ohio, the panhandle of West Virginia and Jamestown, NY. FYI: In the heyday in Pittsburgh/West Virginia/Youngstown, steel and auto were the main industry, but manufacturing in this region made this region very wealthy. Everybody was working, wages were great and everybody gambled. There was an illegal casino in Youngstown called the All American Club and the FBI said after they busted it out that it was the largest illegal casino in the country, "netting" $20 million a year for the Pittsburgh family from that one casino. Youngstown also had the Jungle Inn which was a nationally known illegal casino in the 1940's-1950's. Pittsburgh had casinos along Rt 30 in West Virginia, all over Western PA and in Northeast Ohio and owned several in Havana, Cuba with Meyer Lansky, Santo Traficante and Frank Costello. While it may not be NY, they also had no competition from other families and because the city politics hierarchy was smaller, it was also easier to corrupt. LaRocca and Genovese were big fish in a smaller pond...but they were important enough to go to Appalachin and be recognized as one of 24 original mafia families.
Here's a great article on the history:
http://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/prohibition/http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20001106mobnow6.asp
