Michigan and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre - Michiganology (2024)

FAQs

Was the St. Valentine's Day massacre solved? ›

The perpetrators have never been conclusively identified, but former members of the Egan's Rats gang working for Capone are suspected of involvement; others have said that members of the Chicago Police Department who allegedly wanted revenge for the killing of a police officer's son played a part.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre, mass murder of a group of unarmed bootlegging gang members in Chicago on February 14, 1929. The bloody incident dramatized the intense rivalry for control of the illegal liquor traffic during the Prohibition era in the United States.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre became a national media event immortalizing Capone as the most ruthless, feared, smartest and elegant of gangland bosses. Even while powerful forces were amassing against him,... coholic beverages anywhere in the United States.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a particularly bloody chapter in organized crime history. On Valentine's Day 1929, Thompson submaching guns shot and murdered seven men from Chicago's North Side Gang, headed by George Clarence “Bugs” Moran.

THE COLDEST CASE: Since February 14, 1929, when seven men were gunned down inside a Clark Street garage, the mastermind behind the St. Valentine's Day Massacre has remained a mystery, though suspicions usually point to Al Capone.

Bullets removed from the bodies of the Massacre victims were collected in envelopes with notes on where the bullet was found. This envelope held a bullet (the larger of the two shown) removed from the lower right side of John May's back.

Aftermath. The massacre marked the beginning of an end to Moran's power. However, with the gang members he had left, Moran managed to keep control of his territory until the early 1930s. The event also brought the belated and full attention of the federal government to Capone and his criminal activities.

Officially, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is an unsolved crime. The Chicago police were never able to identify the perpetrators and no one ever confessed. But nobody really doubted who was behind the hit: Al Capone.

Valentine stood for something much bigger than him. He put his life on the line to marry people, tell them about Christ, and help them win against sin. Before he died, he sent letters out to his friends, many of which he had the chance to secretly marry, and asked them to pray for him and all the Christians in Rome.

The Massacre was reported across the country, and it horrified an American public that had previously viewed gangsters such as Al Capone as heroic figures. A line had been crossed, and political leaders and citizens alike demanded a crackdown.

What is the historical reason for Valentine's day? ›

Valentine defied the emperor's orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. It is for this reason that his feast day is associated with love. Formal messages, or valentines, appeared in the 1500s, and by the late 1700s commercially printed cards were being used.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, as it is now called, was the culmination of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran. George “Bugs” Moran was a career criminal who ran the North Side gang in Chicago during the bootlegging era of the 1920s.

Turns out, it was a pretty common name during Late Antiquity. As far as anyone can tell, the Saint Valentine of Valentine's Day was one of two guys preaching the good word in Rome in the third century. One of these two was martyred on February 14th 269, thus giving us the date for his eponymous day.

The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries, when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" of early spring.

McGurn is associated with planning the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in 1929, though this association has not been proven. Although police charged McGurn in the case, he was never brought to trial largely due to his "blonde alibi" — girlfriend and later wife Louise Rolfe — who claimed they spent the whole day together.

Officially, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is an unsolved crime. The Chicago police were never able to identify the perpetrators and no one ever confessed. But nobody really doubted who was behind the hit: Al Capone.

At some point, some of the bullet holes in the bricks were enhanced by red paint (no, it's not blood!).

His wife left him and he was reduced to getting involved in small-time narcotics deals, which at the time was an activity the mob forbade its members to become involved in. On February 14, 1936, McGurn was in a Chicago bowling alley when he was cornered by five hitmen who opened fire on him, killing him instantly.

Police found papers in Burke's wrecked car that led them to his house, where they found an arsenal that included two Thompson submachine guns. The guns and ammunition were delivered to Dr. Calvin Goddard's crime lab in Chicago.