A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On Feb. 14, 1929, the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.
Known as the “Valentine’s Day Massacre,” this is one of the most violent events of the Chicago gang era, per the FBI. Seven members of a rival gang were shot to death execution-style by gangsters impersonating the police. Although no one was ever convicted of the crime and Capone himself was in Florida at the time, the Chicago Tribune reported then that Capone was widely believed to have orchestrated the murders, as it eliminated his last rivals.
It was big news across the nation, and the Deseret News splashed the news across its Page 1 for several days. At first, some blamed the Chicago police force.
Capone ruled the criminal underground of Chicago in the 1920s. Also known by the nickname “Scarface,” he ran several illegal operations, including prostitution, bootlegging and gambling, and was suspected of orchestrating an unknown number of murders.
But on Oct. 17, 1931, he was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Tax evasion.
Did Capone come to Utah?
During Prohibition, Capone reportedly stepped off a train in Ogden and took a stroll down 25th Street, then nicknamed “Two-Bit Street,” scouting business opportunities. He supposedly found drugs, prostitutes, thugs, thieves and card sharks. Below his feet were subterranean tunnels for running hooch between speakeasies.
Capone hopped the next westbound train at Union Station, muttering to an associate: “This is too rough a town for me.”
Deseret News archives are full of stories of Capone’s exploits, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Prohibition in the 1920s. There is a wonderful tale of a Utah man who treated some of the Feb. 14 victims at a Chicago-area hospital as a young man:
“The real-life ‘Scarface’: a timeline of Al Capone’s life and crimes”
“Oldest Utahn left a legacy of hard work”
“Capone’s luxury lockup unlocked for the public”
“Ogden museum to display historic artifacts from Al Capone, Butch Cassidy, Einstein on Saturday”
“Crime linked to breakup of family”
“Legacy of Capone still lures tourists”
“Capone clippers bring big bucks”
“Capone may have one more hit — in music”
On another historic note, on Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years earlier.