Chicago mob's 'Hall of Shame' displayed at Las Vegas Mob Museum

ByChuck Goudie and Barb Markoff, Christine Tressel and Ross Weidner WLS logo
Friday, November 11, 2022
Chicago mob's 'Hall of Shame' displayed at Las Vegas museum
Artifacts from the 1929 Chicago St. Valentine's Day Massacre are on display at the Las Vegas Mob Museum.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The largest chunk of the actual Chicago wall from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a centerpiece of the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, where the I-Team was escorted on a behind the scenes tour recently.

Bricks pockmarked by a hail of bullets on February 14, 1929 are displayed just as they were in the wall where seven Chicago gangsters were lined up and executed in America's worst-ever mob hit. It happened inside the garage of an old storage building that used to be on Clark Street in Lincoln Park.

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At the museum, you can see the original Cook County coroner's report revealing how many bullet wounds there were, the massacre shell casings, and the kind of firepower used that bloody day.

"The Chicago mob played a role in Las Vegas really dating to the mid-'50s to the mid-'80s," said Geoff Schumacher, Vice President of Exhibits and Programs at the Mob Museum. "But when you're talking about like the '70s and '80s you're definitely talking about Chicago being the dominant mob group in town."

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Other Chicago mob artifacts on display include a rifle and a knife from the arsenal of late Outfit killer Frank "Breeze" Calabrese, and Al Capone's .38 revolver.