Al Capone comes to Deerfield
My father Marlin Eller was 12 years old when he first met Al Capone. The year was 1928. Dad’s father, Hoyt Eller, had bought the gas station from J.B. Wiles (see Essay No. 3) in 1926, after the hurricane had destroyed his own house across Dixie Highway. Granddad was busy trying to get his own farm started west of town, so my then 12-year-old father, Marlin, was designated to pump gasoline for customers at the family gas station/garage on the east side of Dixie Highway about 100 yards north of the Hillsboro canal, where the tennis court headquarters is today.
My father told me the following story, and repeated it to others in my presence several times: When he was 12 years-old and “running” the gas station for his father Hoyt, a big black car filled with several men, pulled in to get gas. The first time they stopped in they were coming from the north; the car had Illinois license plates. Dad heard Chicago mentioned, and they had a lot of inner tubes from tire punctures on the road from the trip which needed to be patched. My Dad patched them for them, and when they picked up the tubes later on their way back north, the “boss man” of the group paid for the gas and tire patching, and then handed my father a $10 tip!
This was a huge tip for a 12-year-old boy at the time. My Dad thought he was the nicest man in the world! But later on, when Al Capone was arrested and his picture was in the newspaper, my Dad saw the picture and realized who it was that had tipped him so generously. My grandmother, Mattie Eller, was an excellent seamstress and told her daughter, my Aunt Lavelle Tubbs, that she used to make extra money making dresses for the girls who “worked” at Mr. Capone’s private “establishment.” Located where the Intracoastal Waterway intersects the Hillsboro Canal, the “fish” import business, also had lots of gambling machines and fancy girls around.
Therefore, although Al Capone had a big home in Miami Beach, his main “business” was in what was then the very remote little village of Deerfield Beach. Capone would generally travel by boat from Miami Beach to visit his Deerfield “business.” Capone also owned the 60-acre island directly north of his place. The island was artificially created when the Intracoastal Waterway was dredged out, as it served as a spoil location.
Officially named Deerfield Island a few years ago, many locals still call it Capone Island, because legend has it that the island is where Capone hid all the booze during prohibition. He brought the liquor from Europe to the Bahamas, and then smuggled it onto Capone Island where it was put in the bottom of watertight containers, topped off with fish and dry ice and delivered to the railroad station for onward shipment to Chicago. Capone became enormously rich in a very short time via this illegal Deerfield Beach- connected enterprise.
When the Fed’s convicted Al Capone of tax evasion and put him in prison in 1931, they also confiscated all of his property in Deerfield and put his Intracoastal Waterway “speakeasy” up for auction. It was bought by Mr. Bill Stewart, who then opened it up as a public restaurant which he named “The Riverview.” He operated it from the thirties to the fifties when he died and left it to his nephew, also named Bill Stewart, who became a good friend of mine. The Riverview Restaurant was decorated with the leftover old gambling paraphernalia on the walls, and was considered the premier restaurant in town in the 60’s and 80’s, specializing in Florida lobster, local fish and “the best steaks in South Florida”! Unfortunately the building was damaged beyond reasonable repair by a hurricane a few years ago, and actually torn down last year, 2005!
As a final point, when I was a young teenager here, we used to hear rumors that Al Capone had hidden a lot of his money on “his” island. Therefore, as a young teenager I personally spent many hours swimming over to the island with friends, digging holes looking for Al Capone’s hidden treasures. The only things we actually got were blisters and sandspurs.
David Eller