Angus B. McVicar, Wisconsin Historical Society
Jennie Justo with hat in hand, is embraced by her mother, Lena Justo, as she leaves for a year in the Milwaukee jail for being the alleged owner of a student speakeasy at 921 Spring Street in the Greenbush neighborhood.
During Prohibition in Madison, Jennie Justo was the Queen of the Bootleggers -- pretty and vivacious, proprietor of the college crowd's most popular drinking spots. There were several speakeasies in the area just west of Park Street and south of the tracks; Jennie's were the nicest.
She was born Vinzenza DiGilormo, into a family of bootleggers and thieves. Her father, Carl, was shotgunned to death in 1924, after her brother Dominick squealed on his accomplices in the robbery of the Randall State Bank on Monroe Street. Dom couldn't get down from Waupun for the funeral, but brother Joseph was released from reform school for the day. Brother Pep, a boxer later inducted into the Madison Sports Hall of Fame, also had his run-ins with the law, as did mother Lena.
The beginning of the end for Jennie came on the brightest night in the history of downtown: June 4, 1931. As 20,000 revelers jammed State Street for the celebration of a mammoth new lighting system, Justo got busted for running her speakeasies. Two previous arrests had led to only fines, but this time the feds pressed for prison, and Jennie was sent to the Milwaukee House of Corrections.
When she was released on probation in 1932, her loyal campus customers greeted her with flowers and song, and it wasn't long before she was back in business.
Jennie kept her criminal ways, even as Prohibition was ending. Just two days after 3.2 beer became legal in April 1933, cops busted Justo again, seizing gin, beer she wasn't licensed to sell and a slot machine. State charges were dropped when the man in whose name the place was rented assumed responsibility. But the feds revoked her probation anyway, putting her back in the House of Corrections for another 10 months. She got another warm reception on her return to town.
Jennie's later life was an "only in America" success story. She married star athlete Art Bramhall, and together they ran "Justo's," a popular restaurant on University Avenue. When it closed in 1969 (to reopen as "Smoky's"), newspaper accounts omitted any mention of Jennie's life of crime.
Jennie's joint at 929 Fahrenbrook Court and her parents' place around the corner at 921 Spring Street were razed in the 1980s, part of the South Campus Housing Plan.
