Al Capone and "Capone Island" Deerfield Beach: facts and folklore

Capone in 1930 (FBI) see below*

By Jane Feehan

Al Capone folklore in Florida is nearly as ubiquitous as that of George Washington visiting towns during America's War for Independence.

The storied visits of our first president were based on fact. Not so with gangster Capone. Yes, he did live and die on Miami’s Palm Island. He did drive up the South Florida coast for recreation and to seek business opportunities during the boom times of the 1920s. But he did not buy what became known as “Capone Island” in the Intracoastal Waterway off Deerfield Beach.

During 1928 or 1929, the gangster and a few friends stopped at a speakeasy just south of Boca Raton, where Capone viewed a peninsula jutting out into the water off the north bank of the Hillsboro Canal west of the Intracoastal Waterway. The secluded, vacant property probably looked like an ideal place to conduct some bootlegging biz during Prohibition. Capone made an offer for the southeast portion of the peninsula.

A Saint Petersburg, FL, newspaper reported in 1930 that Judge Vincent C. Giblin, “chief of Al Capone’s legal staff in Miami,” was going to buy the property where Capone was to build a residence for $250,000 and a pool for $125,000. This was, no doubt, hyperbole. The Chicago gangster had paid only $40,000 for his Miami Palm Island digs in 1928. The reporter editorialized that Capone’s “presence in Miami is destructive; his presence in Broward County, close to the Boca Raton Club in Palm Beach County, will be destructive to the club and both counties.”

The state was willing to make a deal but the transaction never materialized for two reasons: Boca Raton residents did not want Capone in the neighborhood and the state wanted a road to be built on the property. The road was the deal breaker; Capone walked away. Anyway, he would not have had much time to enjoy it.  In 1932, at 33 years old, he was convicted of tax evasion and sent to Alcatraz for seven years.

Today the 53-acre property is Deerfield Island, operating as a Broward County park since 1981 after it was leased from the state for 99 years. Waterway dredging during the 1960s created a canal, which turned the peninsula into an island (Capone's vision?) The park serves as a popular Boy Scout camp, wildlife refuge and recreational area for boaters and hikers. Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

See more on Capone on this blog.

-----------

Sources:

Evening Independent, Saint Petersburg, FL. July 19, 1930

The Day, New London, CT, Jan. 25, 1985

Broward County

Wikipedia - Al Capone in 1930" by Wide World Photos, Chicago Bureau (Federal Bureau of Investigation)  Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - 

Tags: Al Capone, Capone in Florida, Deerfield Island, Broward County history, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Sonny Capone in Miami - high school, a wedding and a couple of brushes with the law

By Jane Feehan

Al Capone bought a house on Palm Island in 1927*. After serving eight years in Alcatraz for tax evasion, the mobster who built his notorious reputation in Chicago returned to his Miami home where he kept a low profile. He died at his plush waterfront house  in 1947 at age 48.

There’s more about the Capone name in the chronicles of Miami history.

Al and wife Mae made a rare public appearance at their son’s wedding at St. Patrick’s Church** in Miami Beach, Dec. 30, 1941.  Twenty-two-year-old Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone married his high school sweetheart, Diana Ruth Casey, 21. Three hundred guests attended the mid-morning ceremony.

There was some buzz about the wedding in weeks leading up to the event. Nationally acclaimed syndicated columnist Walter Winchell wrote that friends of “Boogie” Diane Casey were betting that she was already Mrs. Capone. Nothing materialized to justify it as more than a rumor.

St. Patrick's Church 1933
Florida State Archives/Romer

Sonny and Boogie were sweethearts while attending Miami Beach High. After graduation, according to one reporter covering the wedding, young Capone attended Notre Dame for a time but returned to Miami. He then went to the University of Miami where, again, he was Casey’s classmate.  It was also reported that Sonny Capone was part owner of a flower shop in Miami for a brief time before the Dec. 30 nuptials.  The marriage produced four daughters. A few years after the birth of their girls, the two divorced. Capone married twice afterward.

Some biographers claim the younger Capone kept his nose clean of crime but news accounts point to two arrests. While his father was in Alcatraz, 17 year-old Sonny Capone was arrested for reckless driving. According to news accounts, he was trying to pass another car at Washington Avenue and 15^th Street on Miami Beach but crashed into some trees and wound up in St. Francis Hospital with minor injuries. The legal outcome of that incident was not published in newspapers.

In 1965, Sonny had another brush with the law – a pathetic one. He was 45 years old and working at a tire company in Hollywood, FL when he was arrested for shoplifting at a grocery store. He allegedly took a pack of flashlight batteries and a bottle of aspirin totaling $3.50. When asked by the judge why he did it, Sonny said he did not know. The judge said since Capone didn’t have a criminal record, he would sentence him to only two years probation.  Sonny Capone died in Miami in 2004; he was 85. 

* See labels at top right for more Capone history.

**In its website history section, St. Patrick’s Church does not mention the 1941 Capone wedding.

Sources:

St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 19, 1941

Miami News, Dec 30, 1941

Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Dec. 31, 1941

Spartanburg Herald, Jan. 2, 1942

Tags: Miami history, Al Capone in Miami, gangster history, Sonny Capone, Albert Francis Capone, Florida film researcher,  historical researcher

Al Capone comes to Miami for rest ... and more

Capone (R) in Miami
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

“Scarface Al” Capone visited the Miami Police Station when he arrived in town early 1928. He was there he said, to “lay his cards face up on the table.” He told Chief Leslie Quigg and gathering reporters that he was in town for a vacation and a rest. He expected to be joined later that afternoon by his mother, wife and child who were en route by train.

Capone, then about 30 years-old, had recently been ordered out of Chicago by leaders who hoped his absence would bring a “truce between rival factions of machine gunners and bombers.” Capone left for Los Angeles but city officials did not want him there either. Reporters asked why.

“This is the way that happened,” Capone began. “When I got in, a bunch of the boys met me at the train. Some of them must have had guns on their hips and the police didn’t like that, so they thought I was a bad moral influence or something. They had me all wrong there and I’m glad to say my reception here has been quite different.”

Chicago “beer baron” Capone was asked if he would engage in business in Miami. He assured Quigg that he would not but also told reporters he was interested in Miami real estate. He had real estate investments on Florida’s west coast. “I believe now is the time to buy and I’m thinking of going into the market rather heavily.”

Capone in 1928 (LOC)

Capone, “somewhat shy and rather heavyset” dressed in a blue suit, gray fedora and without his walking cane and jewelry, left the station through the back door. He was accompanied by one friend - not his usual team of three body guards. Quigg said Capone should not be treated differently than any other winter tourist.

A month later, Quigg told reporters Capone was doing nothing but “staying in South Florida for his health and for that of his family. He is spending a good deal of money.” (Quigg faced corruption charges in 1928 but was later cleared.)

Capone, considered by many to be the mastermind of the 1929 murders of Chicago rivals - the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre - was at his Miami Beach Palm Island home at the time. He was convicted later in 1929 for owning a weapon and was sent to prison for one year.

In 1931 Capone was convicted of tax evasion and spent nearly a decade incarcerated. He was suspected to have been heavily involved with Miami gambling and illicit race track activities. Capone's Florida affiliation (he died in 1947 at Palm Island) probably contributed to the 1950 Kefauver Senate Committee tapping Miami as one of nine crime centers in the U.S. 

For more about Capone in Miami, see:

http://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/02/homeowners-association-seeks-scarface.html

Sources:

Kleinberg, Howard. Miami Beach, a History. Miami: Centennial Press (1994).

Miami News, Jan. 10, 1928

Miami News, Feb. 21, 1928

Miami News, Jun. 26, 1946

Tags: Miami history, Miami mobsters, Al Capone in Miami, Jane Feehan film researcher,  historical researcher, gangsters

Homeowners association seeks Scarface Al Capone's ouster

Capone Palm Island estate circa 1930
 Florida State Archives/Romer

By Jane Feehan

Most everything that can be written about gangster “Scarface” Al Capone (1899-1947) probably has been published. But an interesting footnote to his history concerns the outrage of the Palm and Hibiscus Islands Improvement Association, Inc. about his taking up residence on Miami’s exclusive Palm Island. 

Late 1927 Capone left Los Angeles under orders from local law enforcement and surfaced in Miami where he checked in at the local police station.  He told the growing throng of reporters he was in town to buy a house because “Miami’s climate is more healthful than Chicago’s and warmer than California – that’s why I’m here.”

He bought a house on Palm Island through Miami middle man Parker Henderson, Jr. Henderson, son of a former Miami mayor, expedited the purchase through a real estate company owned by Mayor J.N. Lummus. The association’s directors* drew up a proposal on April 11, 1928 and presented it to the Miami City Council in hopes of getting official help to oust Capone and to place blame on the mayor for the real estate transaction. Excerpts follow:

Whereas … Capone constitutes a menace to the welfare, peace and contentment of all the residents and owners … and is a serious detriment to the value of the property … whereas, we call upon the council to take such drastic steps … to abate this situation. 

“I don’t think Capone is half as bad as some people picture him,” said Mayor Lummus. Though floored by his involvement, the association directors did not call for his resignation. The council sided with the directors and asked the police to watch the house and all Capone’s activities.

Capone reportedly paid $40,000 for the waterfront house in 1928, six years after it was built. He said he was selling it in 1931 for $100,000 but did not. He was convicted for tax evasion and spent nearly a decade in Alcatraz. 

He died on Palm Island in 1947. The Palm and Hibiscus Islands Improvement Association and residents remained and property values probably shot skyward. Capone's widow sold their mansion in 1952.

Capone in 1931

The waterfront house, which has had a few owners over the years, sits on a football-field-sized lot and was last sold in 2021 for $15.5 million to a family adjacent to the property. Efforts to place the house on a registry of historical places failed; it was demolished  in August 2023.

*Directors: Dan Hardie, John B. Orr, Hamilton Hopkins, Charles Mack, Fred Vanderpool,

Edward Robertson, D.A. Stearns

For more on Capone in Miami, see:
http://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/02/al-capone-comes-to-miami-for-rest-and.html

_________

Sources:

Miami News, Jan. 10, 1928 

Miami News, June 26, 1928 

New York Daily News, July 19, 2012

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 20, 2023

Tags: Al Capone in Miami, Scarface in Miami, film research, Palm Island Miami,  historical researcher