For Sale —American Paradise (43 page)

The grim story of gangland killings was seen by Brisbane's readers—estimated to be at least twenty million—on January 19, 1928. Those same readers also learned that the powerful man heading the crime syndicate that committed those murders was vacationing in Florida.

Miami-
area residents and leaders—at least some of them—were aghast that, thanks to Brisbane, their city was seen as harboring the nation's most notorious criminal. It was one thing to have Capone's name mentioned occasionally in local newspapers. It was quite another thing when the man considered by many to be the leading journalist of that era mentioned Florida, Chicago gangland violence, and Al Capone in the same sentence.

Two days after Brisbane's column, J. Newton Lummus Jr., the real estate agent who was now mayor of Miami Beach, and city manager C. A. Renshaw met with Capone at city hall to discuss how Capone's presence was harming the public image of their fair city.

After the brief meeting, Capone brushed past reporters, went straight to his car, and left. But His Honor, the mayor, had a few words for the scribes.

“Mr. Capone was one of the fairest men I have ever been in conference with,” Lummus said. “He was not ordered to leave Miami Beach, but after our conference we decided it would be to the best interests of all concerned if he left.”

The following day, Capone told reporters that he would indeed leave Miami Beach, but he didn't say where he intended to go. A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said the cops in his city were very concerned about how the bitter Chicago winter might affect Capone's “frail health,” and they hoped that, for his own good, he would stay in the warm, sunny South.

Capone left town briefly. A few days later, Capone and his brother Ralph—also known as “Bottles”—were registered at a hotel in New Orleans under the names of James Brown and Albert Ross. But police in the Crescent City got a tip about the real identities of Brown and Ross and arrested the brothers “under suspicion of being dangerous characters.”

They were kept in custody briefly, then New Orleans police released them and told them to move on.

By early March, Al Capone was back in Florida. This time he had no intention of leaving, and he launched a new publicity campaign to try to become a part of the community.

Capone was fond of telling people that he'd served in the US Army in World War I and that the scar on his left cheek was from an injury he'd sustained fighting the Germans in France. There's no record of Capone serving in the military, but he tried to join the Coral Gables post of the American Legion anyway, even though military service is a requirement for membership. Legion officials dutifully sent a letter to Chicago police asking if Capone had ever been convicted of a felony, which would disqualify him from joining. On March 8, newspapers around the nation reported that Chicago police lieutenant William Rohan told the Coral Gables Legionnaires that Capone had been arrested many times, but had never been convicted of anything.

Miami Beach's most infamous resident also was maneuvering behind the scenes to buy a house there. And his eager gopher, Parker Henderson, was helping him conduct the purchase in such a way as to keep the gangster's name off public records.

On March 27, James and Modesta Popham sold their 10,000-square-foot waterfront mansion on Palm Island in Biscayne Bay to Henderson for $40,000—around $550,000 in twenty-first-century dollars. The transaction took place in the office of the real estate firm of Lummus & Young, and the deed transfer was witnessed by one of the firm's partners, Miami Beach mayor J. Newton Lummus Jr., who had asked Capone to leave town only two months earlier.

Henderson, in turn, quietly sold the property to Mae Capone, Al's wife. The intricate maneuvering kept the transaction out of the newspapers—for a few months, at least.

Soon I'm gonna leave all my cares behind
For I've made, yes, I've made up my mind
Soon I'll wander down the Tamiami Trail
Where it leads down to the sea.

By the spring of 1928, Gene Austin's recording of the pop song “Tamiami Trail,” written by Cliff Friend and Joseph Santly, had been in music stores for
almost two years, and so the road had achieved a measure of fame well before it opened.

With the opening of the Trail only days away, the Reo Motor Car Company of Lansing, Michigan, saw an opportunity to link the name of one of its most popular automobiles with the event.

The Reo Wolverine was advertised as “A Car for the Ends of the Roads.” What better way to demonstrate that advertising slogan than for a Wolverine to be the first passenger car to drive through the Everglades—the wild, mysterious Everglades—on the Tamiami Trail.

As the manufacturers of the Wolverine hoped, the stunt got into the newspapers.

The big sedan made the trip with only a few scratches and a dent from hitting a rock, the
Capital Times
of Madison, Wisconsin, reported on April 1, 1928.

“At times, large boulders that blocked progress had to be removed, and many other obstacles overcome, but the Wolverine fought its way through, much after the manner of the wolverine of the woods from which the Reo Wolverine gets its name—the strongest and most fearless animal of its size known to man,” said the
Capital Times
news story, which probably was written by an advertising agency.

Not only did the publicity gimmick get the name of the Wolverine into the public's consciousness, but it also was a reminder that the Tamiami Trail was about to open.

Edwin Menninger described the Trail as “one of the world's most notable achievements.” He also was bullishly optimistic about Florida's future, and said the downturn of real estate prices during the past two years was merely a “readjustment period.”

“Indications are not wanting that Florida is to have an unusually good summer,” he wrote in the
South Florida
Developer
on April 13. “All in all, Florida's outlook for the coming summer is very bright. And this will be only the beginning of a great, new outlook of prosperity which will presage not only a return to normalcy, but better times than Florida has ever yet enjoyed.”

Predictions that the opening of the Tamiami Trail would mark the return of good times for Florida had spread beyond the state.

“This magnificent Tamiami Trail will open millions of acres of land to cultivation and settlement,” said an editorial in the
San Antonio Light
. “It will make it easy for children to reach their schools. It will provide fertile acres for good workers. And, you may be sure, it will not be made a pretext for more reckless real estate booming and misrepresentation.”

On April 24, 1928, Governor John Martin—who was campaigning for the June Democratic primary nomination for one of Florida's seats in the US Senate—looked out over a crowd of thousands gathered in Tampa and proclaimed that the Tamiami Trail was open to traffic.

Florida newspapers were ecstatic. The
Fort Myers Tropical News
said the Trail was “the great highway of our dreams,” and the
Sarasota Herald
said the opening of the Trail marked the dawn of “a new era of prosperity for the west coast of Florida.

“The tremendous influx of visitors, who will travel the route, will stimulate the building of fine hotels on the west coast, particularly in view of the fact that the west coast has bathing beaches more superior to those of the east coast and enjoys a more salubrious climate,” the
Herald
said.

Meanwhile, a caravan that eventually would include more than one thousand cars assembled in Lake City, about 170 miles north of Tampa. The caravan, carrying thousands of people, would drive to Tampa, join others, and make the 274-mile trek over the Tamiami Trail from Tampa to Miami.

The caravan reached Fort Myers on the evening of April 25. The opening of the Trail was such a momentous event that even the famously busy Thomas Edison opened the grounds of his winter home in Fort Myers to the public. But not his lab. Visitors were warned in advance that the brilliant inventor wouldn't have time to chat.

From Fort Myers, the procession passed through Naples and entered the newest segment of the road that pierced the heart of the Everglades.

Years later author Florence Fritz described the scene as the caravan of noisy revelers penetrated the unique solemnity of the Everglades.

“Approaching autos caused countless flocks of egrets, wood ibis, blue herons, and gray herons to rise in clouds and settle down again as the flag-
flying cortege passed on through the Everglades for the first time in history,” Fritz wrote.

From that moment forward, the perception of the Everglades was forever changed.

“No longer was it the unconquerable domain of blistering sun and blood-thirsty mosquitoes,” Jeffrey Kahn wrote for the
Palm Beach Post
in 1981. “It had become Florida real estate.”

Bob DeGross, chief of interpretation and public affairs for the Big Cypress National Preserve near Miami, said the Tamiami Trail was “an amazing engineering feat” that changed South Florida forever.

“The Tamiami Trail and the Lincoln Highway opened up the whole country to the average person,” DeGross said. “Today we think nothing of doing a long road trip, but back then it was a life-changing experience.”

The day after the Trail opened, as if on cue from a natural force furious at the violation of the Glades, an unusually violent thunderstorm tore across the state from St. Augustine to Bartow, killing four people, drenching the area with rain, and ripping off roofs with winds approaching hurricane force.

Al Capone returned to Chicago while Parker Henderson quietly dealt with the negotiations and paperwork needed to buy the house on Palm Island. Capone
had important business to attend to in the Windy City. It was election season, and Capone had a slate of candidates that he was determined would win. He needed to be at his battle station while the campaign was waged.

And the Chicago Republican primary campaign of 1928 would be a battle in the truest sense of the word.

The campaign leading up to election day on April 10, 1928, included the usual pledges from candidates to throw out the incompetent incumbents and set the city onto a new course of prosperity for all. But the outcome of the election also would determine how strictly Prohibition laws would be enforced.

Capone backed candidates who were part of Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson's political machine. Thompson had won the mayor's office a year earlier by campaigning on a platform that essentially promised to ignore Prohibition. Capone reportedly contributed $250,000—more than $3.4 million in twenty-first-century dollars, a staggering amount of money in 1927—to Thompson's campaign.

The Republican primary campaign of 1928 would go down in infamy as the “Pineapple Primary.” The nickname was derived from the appearance of a US Army hand grenade, which soldiers often referred to as a “pineapple.” Capone wasn't willing to rely on the persuasive appeal of candidates' stump speeches to make up voters' minds. Instead, he decided that lobbing explosives at candidates and various underworld figures would be more effective in determining the outcome of the election.

More than sixty politically related bombings happened in the months before Election Day, and there were several murders as well. Capone lost some of his aides, and he eliminated some of his enemies.