The transition from the 19th Century’s Black Hand crime syndicate to today’s Mafia in Los Angeles began with a drive-by shooting on a bicycle and ended with a mysterious disappearance in the foothills between Sunland and Etiwanda when local Godfather Joe “Iron Man” Ardizzone picked up a mysterious stranger on his way to visit his cousin and was never seen again.

At the end of the 19th Century, the Los Angeles Police Department had about 50 officers to protect a population slightly larger than modern-day Glendora, and grocery shopping entailed transactions with local farmers hawking their freshly-picked fruits and vegetables from wagons or fruit carts.

Yet, as Los Angeles grew, east coast and midwestern racketeers began importing gangsters to invade its growing gambling and prostitution rackets at a time when most organized crime in the region was controlled by political machines rather than ethnic crime syndicates.

The region’s first reported mob war occurred when a local rancher named Joe Ardizzone clashed with a newly-arrived member of the New Orleans-based Matrangas crime family named George Maisano. They approached a highly-regarded local farmer and court interpreter named Joe Cuccia, who often mediated disputes between rival fruit vendors, to intervene.

When Cuccia ruled in favor of Ardizzone, an enraged Maisano swore vengeance on Cuccia and his family. Ardizzone responded by gunning down Maisano in the streets and left town.

The Black Hand

Three months later, a bicyclist pulled up to Cuccia’s wagon as it rattled down North Main Street and opened fire, which was followed by the shooting of a local barber in his shop where police found a note in Sicilian featuring a crude drawing of a clown and a policeman – an old Black Hand sign marking the victim as a “stool pigeon.” Police realized that the Black Hand had come to Los Angeles.

Ardizzone returned to his prosperous Sunland ranch and vineyards and acquired the nickname Iron Man when he sought to unite and control the various regional Sicilian gangs. Despite the fact that he allegedly killed more than 30 men, he was a wealthy and well-respected restaurateur and businessman known to entertain judges, political leaders, historians and film stars. Throughout the 1920s, he directed successful bootlegging operations from his ranch.

After two attempts on his life – one which was reportedly fictionalized in the film “The Godfather” - Ardizzone retired and, in October 1931, climbed into his 1930 Ford coupe to visit family in Etiwanda.

“As he turned the corner, a man waved at him and Ardizzone stopped,” according to his wife’s attorney F.W. Morrison. “The man got in the car with him and that is the last reported sighting of Ardizzone or his car.”

Yet while the mystery of “Iron Man” Ardizzone endures, it came with a humorous footnote. Decades later when developers began preparing his ranch to build a school, they found it ridden with secret tunnels and chambers that often swallowed the heavy earth moving equipment used to grade the land.