Al Capone, Bootlegging, and Speakeasies
Fun Facts
- Because one of the many ways of smuggling illegal liquor was by outrunning the law the bootleggers began to race each other, and through the evolution or their racing came the widely know sport NASCAR.
- Al Capone would be worth 100,000,000 dollars in today's value.
- Al Capone was indeed a philanthropist; he was one of the first men to take action and build soup kitchens for the poor when the Great Depression started.
- Al Capone had a bulletproof Cadillac with glass an inch thick, and several thousand pounds of steel armor. This same car was later used often by Franklin D. Roosevelt for protection.
- Take a look at his first jail cell....
Bootleggers
- They illegally smuggled, distributed and sold alcohol
- This type of smuggling was very profitable to the bootleggers because their costumers would pay high dollar for the low quality liquor.
- Bootleggers would use a variation of ways to get liquor past the police
- They use to conceal and hide the liquor in different ways such as what you see in the left
- Another popular way to get alcohol past the law is by simple out running the police in specially made vehicles.
Speakeasies
- Speakeasies are location usually located in larger towns and cities
- They are place where alcohol was illegally sold and distributed
- Most of the time the were in secretive places such as basements, back rooms, and through secret passage ways
- Many were located in New York City and Chicago
Al Capone
- Alphonse Capone, also known as "The symbol of a shameful era" or "Scarface" (which he aquired through a bar fight, was in the organized crime business almost all of his life.
- Al Capone worked for numerous gangsters such as Frankie Yale, Johnny Torrio, and Jack McGurn. Almost all of his boss' were arrested for a failed assassination, then caught for bootlegging.
- After no one wanted to work in the crime business, Capone continued to illegally buy and sell alcohol, which got his name out for everyone to see. Al Capone was a household name by around the 1920's.
Capone's Ending
- After a failed Valentines Day massacre by Al Capone and Jack McGurn (tried to assassinate Bugs Moran).
- He was arrested outside a movie theater for carrying a concealed weapon, and served at Alcatraz.
- Al Capone died of a heart attack at the age of 47, and changed Chicago's identity forever.