On this day in 1968 the former member of the Prohibition era gang, called the Shelton Brothers, passed away at the age of 63. Frank Wortman worked his way up to takeover gambling operations in St Louis. He had connections in the political arena on both sides of the Missouri-Illinois border and held control of his operations up to the time of his death, when financial losses and ill health started to take its toll.

In 1968 he died from complications from surgery for laryngeal cancer.

On this day in 1968, one of the Midwest's most enduring underworld figures drew his final breath. Frank "Buster" Wortman died on August 3rd from complications following surgery for laryngeal cancer, bringing to a close a criminal career that had spanned four decades and helped reshape organised crime on both sides of the Mississippi River. He was 63 years old.

Wortman came of age during Prohibition, cutting his teeth as a member of the notorious Shelton Brothers Gang, a ruthless outfit that dominated bootlegging operations across southern Illinois throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. The Sheltons were formidable enough to challenge the reach of the Capone Outfit from Chicago, and young Wortman learned the mechanics of power, corruption, and survival in that brutal school. When the Shelton empire began to fracture — Carl Shelton was murdered in 1947 and his brother Bernie killed the following year — Wortman was perfectly positioned to fill the vacuum they left behind.

By the late 1940s, Wortman had firmly established himself as the dominant racketeer in the East St. Louis and Metro-East Illinois region, with considerable influence bleeding across the river into Missouri. Gambling was his primary enterprise, and he ran it with the kind of quiet efficiency that kept both law enforcement and rivals at arm's length. His political connections were extensive and carefully maintained, with allies on both sides of the state line ensuring that his operations enjoyed a remarkable degree of protection. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wortman avoided the national spotlight and the unwanted attention it brought, preferring to consolidate rather than expand recklessly.

His relationship with the Chicago Outfit was one of mutual respect and practical arrangement. Wortman acknowledged Chicago's broader authority whilst retaining meaningful autonomy over his own territory, a balance that suited both parties and kept the peace for years. He was never a flamboyant figure in the mould of a Capone or a Costello, but within his domain he was absolute.

By the early 1960s, mounting legal pressures, financial losses, and declining health had begun to erode the foundations of his empire, though he never fully relinquished control. His death in 1968 left a genuine power void in the St. Louis underworld that proved difficult to fill. Wortman remains a significant, if often overlooked, figure in American mob history — a testament to what careful, methodical criminality could achieve far from the headlines of New York or Chicago.