Today in History—April 21: Solved Mysteries: Al Capone’s Vault Is Opened

On this day in 1986, one of the most anticlimactic reveals in history happened: A vault that had belonged to gangster Al Capone was blasted open on live TV, only to reveal dirt and a few empty bottles. No liquor stash, no bodies, no loot, nothing.

The disappointed audience included IRS agents—Capone still owed $800,000 in back taxes, after all—and the Cook County medical examiner, just in case. Plus a swarm of reporters, photographers, and a TV crew.

The special, The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults, aired on more than 180 TV stations, capable of reaching 94 percent of American households. Expectations were high.

A down-and-out news broadcaster named Geraldo Rivera and a demolition team blew apart brick and concrete walls under the abandoned Lexington Hotel, on Chicago’s Near South Side. It took two hours.

The 125-foot-long vault had been the source of decades of speculation. Capone’s original headquarters during his Prohibition-bootlegging heyday had been across the street, but he soon set up shop in the Lexington, renting out several floors and having a lavender bathtub installed in his suite.

The 10-story hotel, opened in 1892, had once been the epitome of elegance, all crystal chandeliers and imported marble. But it fell into disrepair in the decades after Capone was forced to relocate to Alcatraz by the federal government.

The building changed names and hands before being closed in 1980. Only the estimated cost of demolition (about $1 million) kept it from being razed by the city. But when Chicago bid to host its third World’s Fair, scheduled for 1992, a nonprofit that trained women in construction trades saw the potential and proximity and purchased the building.

When the fair bid fell apart in 1985, so did the restoration plan. But the project brought renewed interest in the vault, leading to a deal between Chicago’s Tribune Entertainment, a production company in California, and the nonprofit to turn the rumors into a prime-time special.

The reveal was a bust, one of the biggest fiascos in TV history.

But it worked out just fine for those involved: Rivera soon landed his own talk show, and Tribune Entertainment and its partners sold out ad space and set a live syndicated TV record that still stands.