By the 1920s, Chicago was America’s "second city." No longer just the place of a fort near the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago had quickly become a gateway to the country’s undeveloped wilderness. For many adventurous young men, the city was often the last stop to buy supplies. Or drink illegal liquor.
Beginning in January of 1920, no one could legally make, transport, sell or buy liquor in the United States.
Prohibition, however, did not stop people from drinking alcoholic beverages. What changed was its method of production and sale. In
Chicago, bootlegging flourished and was largely
run by organized crime.
Trial lawyers like Clarence Darrow (who would be hired, in 1924, to keep
Leopold and Loeb from hanging) were famous Chicago celebrities. So were their clients, largely due to extensive newspaper publicity. In the days before television, murder trials often provided entertainment value for the local populace.
The Chicago Tribune hired a young reporter, Maurine Dallas Watkins, to cover the courts from "a feminine perspective." Watkins, a budding playwright studying at Yale, had decided to take a break from college so she could get some real-world experience. Her journalist duties at the Tribune gave her just the experience she needed - and more.
Watkins turned two of the cases she reported - murders committed by two beautiful young women - into a play when she resumed her studies at Yale. Her classroom assignment still survives as the basis of
Bob Fosse’s musical Chicago. And the storyline of her play, including some of its impossible-but-true parts, is the basis for Chicago, the
movie.
In other words, "Roxie Hart" and "Velma Kelley" were real killers.