Al Capone in courtroom with his lawyers 1930

Copyright 2005 David R. Phillps

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947) was an American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Brooklyn to Southwestern Italian immigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit – though his business card reportedly described him as a used furniture dealer.

Although he was never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone's criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income-tax evasion.

Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York to Gabriele (December 12, 1864 – November 14, 1920) and Teresina Capone (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952), on January 17, 1899. Gabriele was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 16 miles south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province of Salerno.

The Capone family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn, near the Barber Shop that employed Gabriele at 29 Park Avenue. When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Capone dropped out of the New York Public school system at the age of 14, after being expelled from Public School 133. He then worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store and a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor figure.

After his initial stint with small-time gangs, including The Junior Forty Thieves, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the notorious Five Points Gang. He was mentored and employed by racketeer Frankie Yale and bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. It was in this field that Capone received the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface"; he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, provoking a fight with her brother Frank Gallucio. Capone's face was slashed three times on the left side. Capone apologized to Gallucio at Yale's request and would hire his attacker as a bodyguard in later life. When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face and would misrepresent his injuries as war wounds. According to the 2002 magazine article from Life called Mobsters and Gangsters: from Al Capone to Tony Soprano, Capone was called "Snorky" by his closest friends.

On December 30, 1918, Capone wanted to get married, he was under the age of 21 and his parents were required to sign a Consent Form agreeing to allow their already tough guy son to marry. The consent was executed and Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin. Earlier that month she had given birth to their son, Albert Francis ("Sonny") Capone. Capone departed New York for Chicago, without his new wife and son, who would join him later. Capone purchased a modest house at 7244 South Prairie Ave. in the Park Manor neighborhood on the City's south side in 1923 for USD $5,500.

Capone came at the invitation of Johnny Torrio, his Five Point Gang mentor who had gone to Chicago to resolve some family problems his cousin's husband was having with the Black Hand. He quickly resolved the issue by killing members of the Black Hand who had given his cousin's husband problems. He saw many business opportunities in Chicago, bootlegging following the onset of prohibition. Torrio had acquired the crime empire of James "Big Jim" Colosimo after the latter refused to enter this new area of business and was subsequently murdered (presumably by Frankie Yale, although legal proceedings against him had to be dropped due to a lack of evidence).[12] Capone was also a suspect for two murders and a rape at the time, and was seeking a safe haven and a better job to provide for his new family.[13] Capone was known to have been brought up in a deeply religious background, his mother a devout Roman Catholic.

After the 1923 election of reform mayor William Emmett Dever, Chicago's city government began to put pressure on the gangster elements inside the city limits. To put its headquarters outside of city jurisdiction and create a safe zone for its operations, the Capone organization muscled its way into Cicero, Illinois. This led to one of Capone's greatest triumphs: the takeover of Cicero's town government in 1924. Cicero gangster Myles O'Donnell and his brother William "Klondike" O'Donnell fought with Capone over their home turf. The war resulted in over 200 deaths, including that of the infamous "Hanging Prosecutor" Bill McSwiggins.

The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the Chicago area's long history, with voters threatened at polling stations by thugs. Capone's mayoral candidate won by a huge margin but only weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the town hall steps, a powerful assertion of gangster power and a major victory for the Torrio-Capone alliance.

For Capone, this event was marred by the death of his brother Frank at the hands of the police. Capone cried openly at his brother's funeral and ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.

Much of Capone's family put down roots in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone's sister Mafalda's marriage to John J. Maritote took place at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the so-called Polish Cathedral style.

Capone's wealth and power grows in Cicero Severely injured in a 1925 assassination attempt by the North Side Gang, the shaken Torrio turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. Capone was notorious during the Prohibition Era for his control of large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided the Outfit with an estimated US $100 million per year in revenue. This wealth was generated through all manner of illegal enterprises, such as gambling and prostitution, although the largest moneymaker was the sale of liquor. In those days Capone had the habit of "interviewing" new prostitutes for his club himself.

Demand was met by a transportation network that moved smuggled liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast and The Purple Gang in Detroit and local production in the form of Midwestern moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the funds generated by his bootlegging operation, Capone's grip on the political and law-enforcement establishments in Chicago grew stronger.

Through this organized corruption, which included the bribing of Mayor of Chicago William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson, Capone's gang operated largely free from legal intrusion, operating casinos and speakeasies throughout Chicago. Wealth also permitted Capone to indulge in a luxurious lifestyle of custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa), jewelry, and female companionship. He garnered media attention, to which his favorite responses was "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want" and "All I do is satisfy a public demand." Capone had become a celebrity.

Chicago Al Capone Pictures ∙ Professional Art Photographs ∙ Historical Chicago Photographs ∙ Old Chicago Pictures ∙ Black and White Pictures of Chicago ∙ Marvelous Photographs of Chicago, Chicago Historical Pictures ∙ Vintage Chicago Photographs ∙ 1930s Photographs of Chicago ∙ Vintage Chicago Images ∙ Exceptional Photographs of Chicago, Chicago Historical Pictures ∙ Historical Photography ∙ Corporation Art Decoration ∙ Old Chicago Pictures ∙ Black and White Photos of Chicago