Chicago Gangs History: Valentine's Day Massacre
Gangland War Between Al Capone and Bugsy Moran Erupts in Mass Murder
Feb 10, 2009
The Valentine’s Day Massacre was a ghastly crime that has nothing at all to do with romantic day that it was named after, other than the date of February 14. The Valentine’s Day Massacre was the gangland slaying of members of the Bugsy Moran gang in a Chicago garage, attributed to rival gangster Alphonse (Al) Capone.
It was on Valentine’s Day in 1929 that Chicago was marked with the gangland violence of criminal warfare. Called the ghastliest crime in Chicago’s history, the multiple murders were part of a gangland war between the Bugsy Moran Gang and notorious Al Capone, later dubbed “Public Enemy Number One. “
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) website contains about 140 pages of copied documents, notes and newspaper clippings recording the historic event as it unfolded to the public. The gangland crime was not under Federal jurisdiction, so the FBI did not investigate the crime. The Chicago Police Department conducted the investigation into the mass murder.
Prohibition Era in Chicago
During the Prohibition era, the sale of liquor was illegal. The intentions of banning the sale of alcohol to the public were good, but the prohibition created a booming industry for the criminal enterprises headed by the mobsters of the era, such as Bugs Moran and Al Capone.
Al Capone was the head of the Chicago crime syndicate of the era. Reportedly Bugsy Moran’s gang on the North Side of Chicago posed a threat to Capone’s power by hijacking liquor shipments and competing with Capone in the protection rackets. The Moran gang also had murdered allies of Capone.
Valentine’s Day Massacre
On Valentine’s Day of 1929 members of the Bugsy Moran Gang and associates, seven men in all, were lined up against a warehouse wall by men posing as police officers and shot down. The warehouse, located at 2122 North Clark Street, on the north side of Chicago, was used by “Bugs” Moran and his gang for storage of illegal liquor.
Capone was suspected of ordering the hit against the Moran gang, but was in Miami, Florida at the time the shooting took place. Charges were never filed and there was never a criminal trial in the mass murder.
Retaliation in Fox Lake Illinois
In a lesser known gangland slaying, a mob hit in Fox Lake, Illinois, located northwest of Chicago, took place in 1930 at the Manning Hotel on the Chain of Lakes. Of the five men who were shot, three were killed.
The gangland slaying was believed to be in retaliation against the Valentine’s Day Massacre. Fox Lake was a suburban outpost for gambling and drinking for the Capone crime family, where Capone was known to hang out at the Mineola Hotel.
The garage on Clark Street where the Valentine’s Day Massacre took place was razed in the 1960s and turned into a park.
The gangsters of the Prohibition era are sometimes glamorized as romantic figures, but there was nothing romantic about the men who perpetrated the violence of the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Related Article:
John Dillinger Public Enemy Number One Died 1934
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