The morning of February 14, 1929 started like any other day on Chicago‘s North Side. But by 10:30 a.m., the city – and the nation – would be shocked by the most brutal gangland slaying in American history. The St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre, as it came to be known, saw seven members of George "Bugs" Moran‘s North Side Gang lined up against a wall inside a Lincoln Park garage and riddled with 70 rounds of ammunition by four unknown assassins, at least two of whom were dressed as police officers.
The bloody hit was the culmination of a vicious and long-running turf war between Moran‘s Irish mob and the Italian South Side gang of his arch-rival Al "Scarface" Capone. And while the case officially remains an unsolved mystery 95 years later, there is little doubt about who ordered the hit that shocked the nation and came to symbolize the lawlessness and violence of the Prohibition era in Chicago.
Bootlegs and Bloodshed: The Violent Rise of Gangland Chicago
To understand the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre, one must first understand the world in which it occurred. In 1920, the 18th Amendment ushered in the era of Prohibition, banning the production, sale and distribution of alcohol in the United States. Instead of dry, sober times however, the nation – and Chicago in particular – would see an unprecedented rise in organized crime as rival gangs battled to control the now-illegal liquor trade.
Chicago became a major center for bootlegging, with an estimated 20,000 speakeasies operating in the city by the mid-1920s. The illicit liquor industry was worth an estimated $12 million a year (over $200 million in today‘s dollars) and controlled by powerful criminal syndicates.[^1]
The stage was set for a bloody turf war between the two most powerful gangs in the city: the Italian Outfit headed by Al Capone on the South Side, and the Irish North Side Gang run by Bugs Moran. Hijackings of each other‘s booze shipments were common, and an estimated 700 gangsters were killed in Chicago during the 1920s as the rival mobs battled for supremacy.[^2]
Capone was ruthless in expanding his criminal empire, which by 1929 was estimated to be bringing in $100 million a year from bootlegging, gambling and prostitution.[^3] He was willing to use any means necessary to eliminate his competition – and Moran‘s gang was the last major obstacle in his way.
"Nobody Shot Me": A Staged Police Raid Turns into a Bloodbath
The plan was simple: lure Moran and his men to the garage at 2122 North Clark Street on the pretext of receiving a special discount on a stolen shipment of whiskey supplied by Detroit‘s Purple Gang. Once inside, Capone‘s assassins would stage a fake police raid and eliminate Moran‘s gang in a hail of Tommy Gun fire.
On the morning of February 14, four men – two dressed as police officers, two in civilian clothes – pulled up to the garage in a stolen police car and went inside. Moran was running late that fateful morning, and spotted the police car pulling up as he approached. Thinking it was a real raid, he fled the scene, unwittingly saving his own life.[^4]
Inside the garage, seven of Moran‘s men – including his top enforcers, the Gusenberg brothers – were confronted by the phony cops and ordered to line up against the wall. The killers opened their overcoats to reveal Thompson submachine guns and opened fire, spraying the victims with 70 rounds in a matter of seconds.
When real police officers arrived on the grisly scene, they found six men – all Moran gangsters – dead, sprawled along the wall and riddled with bullets. A seventh, Frank Gusenberg, was barely alive, despite 14 gunshot wounds. When asked by police who had shot him, Gusenberg replied, "Nobody shot me," keeping the gangster‘s code of silence to the end. He died three hours later.[^5]
The bullet-riddled brick wall of the garage after the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
The brutality of the crime shocked the city and made headlines around the world. "Gangland Sets New Record for Blood," declared the Chicago Tribune.[^6] The New York Times called it "the most cold-blooded massacre in the long and bloody history of Chicago‘s gang wars."[^7]
Capone‘s Coup: Taking Out the Competition
Though no one was ever charged in the case, it was widely understood that Capone was behind the hit. "Only Capone kills like that," Bugs Moran said when he learned of the slaughter.[^5] However, Capone himself had an airtight alibi – he was at his Florida estate at the time, meeting with the Dade County solicitor.[^8]
Most historians believe the massacre was planned by Capone and carried out by several of his top gunmen, including Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, Fred "Killer" Burke, and members of Egan‘s Rats, a gang that had defected to Capone‘s Outfit.[^9] The phony police officers are believed by some to have been actual Chicago cops on Capone‘s payroll, suggesting the depth of the Outfit‘s corruption and influence.[^10]
The massacre was a major victory for Capone, effectively eliminating the last gang with the power to challenge his criminal empire in Chicago. With Moran‘s gang gutted and its boss driven into hiding, Capone solidified his hold on the city‘s underworld.
The Investigation and Aftermath: An Unsolved Mystery
Despite an extensive investigation by the Chicago Police Department and the coroner‘s office, no one was ever charged or prosecuted for the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre. A lack of credible witnesses or physical evidence hampered the case from the start.
Police were able to recover the killers‘ weapons, including two Thompson submachine guns, but could not trace them to their owners.[^11] None of the 70+ shell casings found at the scene revealed fingerprints. Some potential leads ended up dead themselves in further mob hits, including the owner of the garage who was found murdered three months later.[^12]
Over the years, various mob figures, including Capone‘s top gunmen Burke and McGurn, would be suspected as the killers. But no one was ever definitively tied to or convicted of the crime. When McGurn himself was killed in a mob hit in 1936, likely on Moran‘s orders, many believed it closed the book on finding the shooters.[^13]
The massacre significantly damaged Capone‘s image in the eyes of the public. Though he had cultivated a "Robin Hood" type of reputation in Chicago up to then, the slaughter turned sentiment against Capone and his fellow mobsters.[^14] It galvanized federal efforts to crack down on Capone‘s criminal empire, efforts that would culminate in his conviction for tax evasion and imprisonment in 1931.
Moran‘s gang never recovered from the blow. Stripped of his top enforcers and soldiers, Moran was muscled out of his North Side territory and reduced to pulling small-time robberies until his own imprisonment in 1946.[^15] The North Side Gang disappeared and Capone‘s Outfit ruled Chicago‘s underworld unchallenged.
The Legacy of the Massacre: From Brick Wall to Pop Culture
In a strange coda to the massacre, the SMC Cartage garage at 2122 North Clark Street became a macabre tourist attraction in Chicago for decades. The brick wall against which the victims were lined up and shot drew particular interest before the garage was finally torn down in 1967.[^16]
A Canadian businessman bought the bricks of the bullet-pocked north wall and had them shipped to Canada. For years, they were displayed in exhibitions in Vancouver and other cities.[^17] In 2018, over 100 bricks and other artifacts from the wall were donated to the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, where they remain on display today.[^18]
Bricks from the bullet-marked wall of the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre garage on display at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas (Mob Museum photo)
Nearly a century later, the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre remains seared into the popular imagination as the most infamous mob hit in American history. It has been depicted, referenced and parodied countless times in movies, TV shows, novels, and more.
The most famous pop culture depiction is likely in Billy Wilder‘s classic 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot, in which Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play two musicians who unwittingly witness the massacre and flee Chicago disguised as women in an all-female band. The actual massacre is also dramatized in Roger Corman‘s 1967 film The St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre.
From The Untouchables to Boardwalk Empire, Peaky Blinders to The Simpsons, the specter of Al Capone‘s Chicago and the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre continues to loom large as a symbol of the Prohibition era‘s lawlessness, corruption, and bloodshed.
Ninety-five years later, the echoes of those Tommy Guns can still be heard in our historical memory. The bricks of that blood-spattered garage wall are now historical artifacts. But the St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre remains as vivid as ever, the bloodiest chapter in a turbulent time when mobsters like Capone ruled the Windy City and violence was the law of the land. It is an enduring reminder of the vicious realities behind the romanticized, Hollywood image of the gangster.
References
[^1]: Eig, Jonathan. Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America‘s Most Wanted Gangster. Simon & Schuster, 2010.[^2]: Krist, Gary. City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago. Crown, 2012.
[^3]: Schoenberg, Robert J. Mr. Capone. Morrow, 1992.
[^4]: Russo, Gus. The Outfit: The Role of Chicago‘s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America. Bloomsbury, 2002.
[^5]: Chicago Daily Tribune, 15 Feb. 1929, pp. 1-2.
[^6]: Chicago Daily Tribune, 15 Feb. 1929, p. 1.
[^7]: "Chicago Gangster Slain by Rivals in Massacre on St. Valentine‘s Day." The New York Times, 15 Feb. 1929, p. 1.
[^8]: Bergreen, Laurence. Capone: The Man and the Era. Simon & Schuster, 1994.
[^9]: Helmer, William J. and Arthur J. Bilek. The St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone. Cumberland House, 2004.
[^10]: Hoffman, Dennis E. Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago‘s Private War Against Capone. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
[^11]: Chicago Police Department, "St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre" investigative files, 1929.
[^12]: Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 May 1929, p. 1.
[^13]: Chicago Daily Tribune, 3 Feb. 1936, p. 1.
[^14]: Ruth, David E. Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
[^15]: New York Times, 9 July 1946, p. 19.
[^16]: Chicago Tribune, 24 Oct. 1967, p. B7.
[^17]: Vancouver Sun, 13 May 1969, p. 30.
[^18]: The Mob Museum, "Museum Receives Artifact Donations Connected to St. Valentine‘s Day Massacre." Press Release, 8 Feb. 2018.
