Dirty Doc Ames and the Scandal that Shook Minneapolis

The story of Albert Alonzo &quot;Doc&quot; Ames is perhaps the greatest political scandal in Minnesota history. As mayor of Minneapolis, Ames exposed the city to national humiliation&ndash;and helped jump-start an era of reform. <br/> <br/> At the turn of the twentieth century, Minneapolis was moving away from a time of political rings, frontier justice, and old boys&#39; clubs to a more civic-minded way of governing. But in 1901, the affable, degenerate Doc Ames, a former Minneapolis mayor well past his political prime, duped his way back into the office. Ames appointed his brother as chief of police, and together they assembled a rogues&#39; gallery of thieves to squeeze as much money out of the city as quickly as they could. Under Ames&#39;s leadership, criminals walked beats wearing policeman’s uniforms. City detectives robbed prominent citizens. Police maintained arrangements with madams and saloonkeepers, extracting pay for the privilege of openly ignoring the law. <br/> <br/>With a card game gone bad, and a complaint to a newspaper, it all fell apart. Ames fled Minneapolis in mid-term to avoid prosecution. And at Doc Ames&#39;s spectacular downfall, the citizens of Minneapolis finally woke up and took their city back.