St. Valentine's Day Massacre

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St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

February 1929: America edged towards the Roaring 20’s great hangover that would see a nation plunged into the Great Depression when stock values took a similar trajectory. Open warfare filled the streets in Chicago’s gangland. Prohibition had spread a cancer of violence and criminality. Chicago was its heart. But, one shocking event would define the times and bring the brutal city warfare to a shuddering end. The streets had run red over black market booze and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre would leave the American public in indignation and shock. 

Some believe that the site of this gangland atrocity has been called out from the afterlife like a spotlight in the dark. But is it all just hearsay? Get wise to the Wiseguys on a Haunted Chicago Tour.

Why Is The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Location Haunted?

Chicago was no stranger to criminals or violence in 1920 when Prohibition descended on the United States, making outlaws of all those who would taste a tipple or make a dollar from drink. 

When seven men were brutally slain in a warehouse on a bitter snowy February morning in 1920’s Chicago, the location was stained with death and branded in infamy. 

The spectral echoes of this orchestrated carnage are said to be felt today with ghostly sightings and spine-tingling encounters, shocking some like the crack of a pistol.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

1929 saw Mickey Mouse make his screen debut, while Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the 31st President Of The United States with these words: “We in America today, are nearer to the final triumph over poverty, than ever before in any land”

There is more than a hint of irony then, that a crime boss that would be seared into the public consciousness during this time. All through his own demonstration of power over poverty. Far quicker than the cartoon mouse, at a price paid in blood. 

Al Capone Congress Plaza Hotel Chicago
Copyright US Ghost Adventures

Alfonse Gabriel Capone, AKA ‘Scarface,’ would shortly ascend the criminal underworld and forever etch his name in the American psyche. The criminal gang war in Chicago between various criminal elements had gunned themselves down to a simple faceoff; The Irish and the Italians. The Northsiders led by George ‘Bugs’ Moran and Al Capone’s ‘Chicago Outfit’.

By 1929, the gangs of Chicago ran 21,207 speakeasies in the city. Profits from these criminal enterprises were at an estimated $357M. In the previous 9 years over 600 members of Chicago’s criminal gangs had been murdered in cold blood. 

The stakes for control were never higher. The scene was set for a bloody power grab that would anoint the one true “King Of Chicago.” A blood-soaked masterstroke where one man would rule it all. 

The Killings 

On that morning of February 14th, this murderous ambush was carried out. Four men, two in Police uniforms and two in grey trench coats and fedoras gathered on the street. They walked quietly through the snow and entered the SMC Cartage Street Warehouse front door. 

Inside were members and associates of the Northside Gang who it is thought were lured to the building with the promise of purchasing a shipment of hijacked liquor. Thereafter, believing a mere Police raid was underway, the men were lined up against the wall. 

As the seven doomed figures faced the wall, two trench-coated gunmen entered the main warehouse. Thus the ruse was a success in all but the fact that it narrowly missed the bullseye. Two lookouts, who patiently watched and waited for the Moran gang to arrive, incorrectly identified Moran entering the warehouse, setting in motion the gruesome chain of events. 

A cacophony of gunfire erupted from two Thompson sub-machine guns, cutting the victims to pieces and leaving behind a scene of bloody carnage. 

The ambush had been an attempt to kill ‘Bugs’ Moran himself and likely a few of his top enforcers. However, fate had a card to play on that winter morning. 

Moran had spotted a Police car near the warehouse as he approached and had cautiously retreated to a coffee shop with an associate to get more information on the squad car. 

After Moran’s narrow escape the leadership of his organization was erased in a hail of gunfire. Widely believed to be ordered by Capone, ‘Scarface’ was in Florida at his Winter Estate at the time of the killings. 

Nevertheless, his deadly move on the Chicago crime chess board had been played. 

WHO WAS KILLED IN THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE?

  • Albert Kachallek,
  • Frank Gussenberg
  • Peter Gussenberg
  • Adam Heyer
  • Albert Weinshank
  • Reinhart H. Schwimmer
  • John May

The victims of the massacre contain noteworthy names but for starkly different reasons. John May was an associate and sometimes mechanic for the Northside Gang. Neither a trigger man nor a murderer, he had received a $10 bonus that morning for repairing the transmission on a gang member’s car. 

Reinhart H Shwimmer was a practicing physician until debts and the magnetic lure of being with known gangsters seduced him into being a bit part player in a doomed bootleg whisky purchase. 

At the other end of the spectrum were the Gussenberg brothers; Peter and Frank. Trusted lieutenants of Moran, these hoodlum siblings were already murder suspects and had a long history of violence and criminal enterprise. 

Frank Gussenberg was taken to hospital and questioned on his deathbed, having somehow survived. When asked who gunned him down, Gussenberg responded “nobody”. All in all gangster to the bitter end, Frank Gussenberg died three hours later.

Perhaps Moran’s biggest losses were Adam Kachallek and Adam Heyer. Kachallek was an underboss and Moran’s trusted friend, while Heyer served as Moran’s ‘consigliere. Both men gave critical support and advice to Moran in his decision-making. 

The loss of these figures would decimate ‘Bugs’ Moran’s ability to wage war with Capone in Chicago. Moran died in Leavenworth prison in 1957, never again regaining the power or stature he held before Capone’s brutal strike.

He was penniless, prior to his arrest for robbery and fraud. Not one person was charged in the killings. Within 19 months all four suspected killers would themselves have died a violent death.

Haunted Bricks The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

Missing Bricks St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Copyright US Ghost Adventures

Newspapers and radio carried the salacious details of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the moment was bronzed in legend. Consequentially, here are some who believe the location of the massacre may have been forever imprinted by the orgy of violence that painted the floor red on that February morning. 

The city made efforts to end public romanticizing of these brutal murderers by tearing down the warehouse, as they did in any infamous locations. This ultimately failed as even the bloodstained, bullet-ridden bricks from the warehouse became collectors’ items. However, it seems these collectors bought more than brick. 

As tragedy befell the owners of these macabre mementos, such as fatal accidents, diseases, and ghostly encounters, the legend was heightened further. 

It seemed they were cursed. The madness of this idolization reached a peculiar zenith when one businessman decided to purchase these bricks with a garnish business plan. 

The bricks of the wall where the seven men met their fate, would be reassembled. Soon after the Death Wall would take pride of place in a gangster-themed bar in Vancouver, B.C.

Then, The Banjo Palace opened with the infamous wall in the men’s room of all places. Afterwards, the wall would outlive its location and bring more misfortune to its owner. 

The bar failed and today, the actual wall, bullet holes, blood, and all, can be found in a Las Vegas Mobster Museum. Which, for the time being, remains open. 

In a chilling twist, people who live near the original site of the massacre and staff at the Vegas museum have both claimed to have heard the sound of heavy gunfire, deathly moans, and the sound of bodies falling to the floor. Two locations. One horrific act. Consequentially both are plagued by the same ghostly echo.

Haunted Chicago

Today the site of Capone’s brutal deathstroke is far removed from the central role it played in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre; An act so heinous that it cursed even the bricks. This murderous manifestation unquestionably fits neatly into the legend of one Alfonse ‘Scarface’ Capone. You can associate with known hoodlums on a Chicago Ghost Tour

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for haunted stories from around the nation, and keep reading our blog for the best-haunted history in America.

Sources:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ6Tz5EURZE
  • https://prezi.com/9hl-vltqcrdl/st-valentines-day-massacre/
  • https://www.wttw.com/chicago-stories/al-capones-bloody-business/how-the-st-valentines-day-massacre-unfolded-and-shocked-america
  • https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/al-capone
  • https://gangster.fandom.com/wiki/Frank_Gusenberg

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For over 200 years, Chicago has endured the Great Fire, Al Capone, Prohibition, Violent Riots, and Shipwrecks. These events led to Chicago’s mysterious hauntings, often experienced by locals – and even our guests. The third most populous city in the nation has become a hotbed for ghostly encounters.

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