The Little Chicago Era part 2: A string of bombings leaves city in terror

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - Before it was the home of the Corvette, Bowling Green spent over a decade battling a criminal undercurrent revolving around gambling, car thefts, and wet vs. dry politics.

By the late 1950s, the battle became explosive, with a series of bombings taking place in and around the city. Dozens of both successful and failed bombing attempts were reported throughout the 1960s, with many targeting those in law enforcement, including then BGPD captain Wayne Constant and his family.

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“They went out in front of my mother’s beauty shop, and there were 6 sticks of dynamite under the car. It was my sister’s first day of grade school, and that’s the only reason he came out and saw it behind the wheel. I don’t know that it would have gone off if it was run over. Possibly, possibly not, but it was just a warning to us or to my dad to watch it,” said Constant’s daughter, Susie Constant Paschal.

The bombings also targeted the media. Journalists from every news outlet were under constant threat to keep their mouths shut about what was happening in the city.

The threats had journalists checking their vehicles every time they left their homes or offices. In 1969, WBKO, then known as WLTV, had a broadcast tower bombed with 48 sticks of dynamite, causing over $200,000 in damage.

“I think everyone was nervous. It was a small community back then. You weren’t safe, we weren’t safe, and it made a lot of tension with just us kids, you know? Where do you go, where can you go? Because we just didn’t know,” Paschal said.

With their nerves stretched thin from the persistent threats on their lives, Bowling Green investigators teamed with state and federal agents, conducting a series of surveillance operations, arrests, and federal indictments that eventually brought the era of chaos to an end.

“The only thing that didn’t stop was the talk of how you run a stop sign that they’d kill you or shoot you. And that was so offensive to me, even as a freshman, I thought, ‘You all don’t understand. They’re trying to kill my daddy, and they don’t care if they kill us,’ but you just couldn’t tell people that. They didn’t understand. They didn’t realize how dangerous it was at the time,” Paschal explained.

Bowling Green’s era as Little Chicago may be over, but the whispers of that time remain, coming from those who were alive to witness it firsthand.