The famous gangster turned a former barge into a floating dance hall with live music and a bar.
Divers have recently found and photographed the sunken boat of infamous gangster Al Capone on the bottom of Lake Charlevoix in Michigan where he threw his lavish booze parties during Prohibition, which was in effect in the United States from 1920 to 1933. It was forbidden to produce, transport and sell alcohol, but it didn't stop Al Capone.
His famous speakeasy boat Keuka was built back in 1889 as a logging barge, and the gangster got it in 1928.
Al Capone turned it into a floating dance hall with live music, a casino, and bar. People visited it to get drunk in spite of Prohibition. The locals even told legends about the music and songs coming from the lake at night. Prohibition led to an increase in the illegal production and sale of alcohol, known as bootlegging, the spread of speakeasies – illegal drinking places – and a related increase in gang and organized crime. Prohibition was eventually repealed in 1933, but gangsters like Al Capone a fortune on it.
The fate of the speakeasy boat was grim, her manager was shot by a drunken customer, and in August 1932, she mysteriously sank. It was rumored that she was so dilapidated that a special man was hired to siphon water out of the hold every night. He was paid in whiskey for this work.
But it turned out to be pretty well preserved at the bottom of the lake. Divers Chris Roxburgh and Lee Rosenberg managed to photograph the remains of the Keuka.
"Locals said Capone and his men supplied this casino ship with booze during the Prohibition era, from 1929 to 1932. Capone had a house near Charlevoix, and people say they often saw him during those years. He had several underground distilleries in northern Michigan, and it was easy to get to Chicago from there," Roxburgh said.
According to old-timers' accounts, the Keuka was sunk by a local church group tired of "devilish parties, booze, music, and protitutes."
Lake Charlevoix was not randomly chosen; if the police had rushed in, the speakeasy boat would have easily escaped pursuit and dropped its boozy passengers ashore.
Source: Daily Mail
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