William "Skippy" Rohan (July 5, 1871 - January 8, 1916) was a St. Louis gangster and an original member of Egan's Rats.
No matter how many times he was arrested and thrown in the City Workhouse, Skippy Rohan was known as the wildest crook in the Kerry Patch.
Most of the Ashley Street boys were just sneak thieves at this time and were awed to be hooked up with a notorious crook like Skippy Rohan, who took a primary position in the fledgling gang.
On June 16, 1897, Skippy Rohan was accused of shooting and killing a saloonkeeper named Casper Biemfohr during a robbery gone bad.
Skippy took refuge in "The Rookery", a large tenement at Fifteenth and O'Fallon streets that was crowded with refugees, criminals, and garbage.
Skippy's sister Catherine was married to a low-level member of the Ashley Street Gang named Carl Lohrman, who idolized his wild brother-in-law.
On August 9, 1897, Carl Lohrman was lured to a meeting at Snake Kinney's saloon at Second and Carr with Tom Egan and John "Guinea Mack" McAuiliffe.
While Skippy frequently joined Egan for drinks at his saloon at Broadway and Carr streets, Rohan appears to have been serious about going legit.
As a condition of his parole, Skippy Rohan would check in with St. Louis detectives at their headquarters at the corner of Twelfth and Clark streets.
As he left one of these sessions in December 1915, Rohan ran into Egan gangster Harry "Cherries" Dunn, who mumbled a greeting and hurried away.
On the evening of January 7, 1916, Skippy Rohan and his friend August Hartmann attended a meeting for the shoemaker's union they belonged to.
The pair stood at the bar talking with bartender John Laker when Cherries Dunn suddenly barged in.
Willie Egan managed to save Dunn's life for the time being, until two of his men shot Cherries to death in a Pine Street lid club nine months later.