Imagine a Chicago gunman and gangster who relaxed by running a dude ranch in Colorado and staging rodeos in Denver. That was “Diamond Jack” Alterie, whose real name was Leland Varain and who also used the alias Louis Alterie.

“Diamond Jack” wore a 10-gallon hat and a large diamond-studded belt buckle that gave him his nickname. In Chicago, he had been a hit man and bodyguard for Dion O’Banion’s South Side Gang and was a slugger for the Theatrical and Building Janitors’ Union. A slugger is one who extorts money, in this case, from theater owners.

O’Banion was one of Al Capone’s early competitors for control of the bootlegging business in Chicago. Apparently, Alterie, who was raised as a cowboy, came to Colorado to pursue that lifestyle again. In 1927, he purchased Sweetwater Lake Ranch. He lost it in 1932 after being unable to make the mortgage payments. On Nov. 8, 1932, he was involved in an altercation at the Hotel Denver, where he shot through a hotel room door, wounding two men who were occupying the room.

At the trial, Judge John Shumate of Glenwood Springs sentenced him to one to five years in the penitentiary. Instead, he was granted probation, provided he left the state by Feb. 1, 1933, and did not return for five years. “Diamond Jack” left Colorado, and on July 18, 1935, he was gunned down in Chicago in an execution style that Alterie himself was said to have invented.