Ramsey County History – Winter 1998: “The Legend of Sam Taran: Boxer, Bootlegger, and St. Paul’s ‘Fighting Tailor'”

The Legend of Sam Taran: Boxer, Bootlegger, and St. Paul’s “Fighting Tailor”

Author: Paul R. Gold

Sam Taran was less a boxer or tailor than he was a bootlegger and career criminal; he was good at being a crook. Taran was a minor figure in St. Paul’s gangster era but a colorful one and a favorite of the press. Often arrested, rarely convicted, Taran might have been called “Teflon” had the term existed in those days. But he finally went down for perjury in 1927 and disappeared.

PDF of Gold article