Infamy of Chicago's St. Valentine's Day Massacre reverberates nearly 100 years later

CHICAGO - On this day in Chicago history, an infamous event unfolded on North Side that's reverberated for almost a century and has become an inextricable part of the city's identity to this day.

Ninety-six years ago, the ongoing prohibition-era gang wars led to the notorious mass shooting known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre

The backstory:

In 1929, the stock market hadn't yet crashed. It was a decade in Chicago marked by massive new buildings and public transportation and social change in the jazz capital of the world, but prohibition gave rise to Chicago's underworld, bootlegging, organized crime and gang wars, most notably, between Al Capone's outfit, and the North Side gang led by career criminal Bugs Moran, vying for territory.

"Pretty much all hell breaks loose and there are multiple killings going on over the next several years," said Paul Durica, director of exhibitions, Chicago History Museum.

Though never formally accused, most historians agree it was Capone's men responsible for what unfolded in this small, one-story garage on the 2100 block of North Lincoln Avenue on Feb. 14, 1929.

"February 14, 1929. It was a Thursday. It was a typical winter day in Chicago. The temperatures were in the high teens. There was a light snow falling. A bunch of men came in the early morning to the SMC Cartage Company at 2122 N. Clark St. Now, the business was just a front. It was run by the North Side gang, and it was basically where they kept all their vehicles that they used in their different bootlegging operations," Durica said.

That morning, Moran's crew had gathered in the garage to prepare for a big run to Detroit, to pick up a major shipment of booze from Canada.

"Moran was supposed to be there that day," Durica said. "In fact, he was on his way towards the garage when he happened to notice that there was what looked to be a police vehicle parked outside of it, so he wisely backed off."

Inside, were seven of Moran's underlings, including the gang's mechanic, accountant and two enforcers. At 10:30 a.m., they got an unexpected visit from two outsiders in long coats and two men who appeared to be police officers.

"The seven men who were there in the garage, think that some kind of raid is happening, and they're ordered by the men dressed as police officers to line up against the wall so that they can be searched, and within just a matter of minutes, the men in the long coats pull out the submachine guns and kind of mow down the seven individuals," Durica said.

They were lined up against a brick wall and executed. The only survivor: the mechanic's pet dog, an alsatian shepherd named High-Ball.

"Some accounts say he was adopted by a police officer or a reporter, others say they the police had to put the dog down because he was so traumatized by what he'd witnessed," Durica said.

Chicago's reputation

Big picture view:

The aftermath was soon felt beyond city limits.

"The short-term response was one of general panic and confusion," Durica said. "After the St. Valentine's Day massacre, that's when you really began to see, even more than before, a concerted effort to crack down on organized crime.

The shooting left an indelible mark on Chicago's identity as a city.

"Chicago would forever be associated with crime. Even to this day, think about prominent Chicagoans. You've got Oprah, you've got Michael Jordan, but you've still got Al Capone more than a century later, that's what people think about this city," Durica said.

Today, the site where the garage once stood is an empty lot, although the building across the street still stands, where Capone's men were believed to have staked out their rivals.

To this day, the shooters' identities remain a mystery. No one has ever been charged or tried for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.