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12 | July 5, 2019 | The glencoe anchor sound off
glencoeanchor.com
2019
Glencoe: Yesterday and Today
Al Capone, the 15th Earl of
Huntington and Glencoe
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Glencoe Historical
Society
Contributing Columnist
A portion of the mural entitled “The History of
Bootlegging” featuring Al Capone that was painted in
the basement bar of the Glencoe home of James Glaser
by the 15th Earl of Huntington, Lord John Hastings.
Photo Submitted
The Historical Society
is often asked
about rumors of
Al Capone’s connection
to Glencoe. Surprisingly,
there are two. The obvious
one is that Glencoe was
the home of U.S. District
Court Judge James
Wilkerson who presided
over Capone’s tax evasion
trial and sentenced him to
prison. Wilkerson lived at
924 Bluff St.
There is a second connection,
however, and it
involves a mural painted
by the 15th Earl of Huntington
on a wall behind a
private bar in the Glencoe
home of James M.R.
Glaser located at 665
South Ave. (750 Prairie).
The mural, titled “The
History of Bootlegging,”
was created with a paint
gun sometime between
1932-1933. Prohibition
was still the law of the
land, and Capone was
beginning his 11-year
sentence for tax evasion
in the Atlanta federal
penitentiary.
The mural, however,
was notable enough to
draw the attention of
Time magazine in its
April 28, 1935, issue. In
an article entitled “Capone
‘Hero’ of Painting
by British Peer,” Time
explained that the mural
highlighted Capone as
“the scar faced [hero],
plump jowled and
wearing spats ... with a
platinum blonde on his
knee.” The mural also
depicted “five scowling
henchmen ... their hands
thrust ominously in their
pockets ... [as] the fed[s
were] … about to burst
into the room. The blonde
is frightened and Capone
himself has one hand in
his pocket.” At the edges
of the mural, one could
also see, among other
things, “a murky waterfront
scene, … [with]
five husky roustabouts
unloading sacks of contraband
whiskey from a
speed launch [while] others,
clutching revolvers
and a submachine gun,
are apparently beating off
an attacking hijack party
[as] the police are coming
... in a rowboat with the
Stars and Stripes waving
in the breeze.”
The artist of the mural
was Francis John Clarence
Westenra Plantagenet
Hastings, a lineal
descendant of Richard
the Lionhearted and the
House of Plantagenet. He
was known as Viscount
Hastings and became the
15th Earl of Huntington
in 1939 when his father
died. (Coincidentally, it is
believed that the legendary
Robin Hood was also
an Earl of Huntingdon.)
After completing his
education at Eton, where
he was a classmate of
George Orwell, Hastings
attended Christchurch
Oxford and later the
Slade School of Art in
London. In 1930, he
studied with the famous
Mexican muralist Diego
Rivera and assisted in
Please see GHs, 13