Illinois distillery owner reached into wall and found one thing that made his jaw drop

Al Capone built his empire in Chicago through violence and intimidation during Prohibition.

The artifacts from that bloody era keep turning up in the most unexpected places.

And an Illinois distillery owner reached into the wall and found one thing that made his jaw drop.

Bootlegger hideout gives up its secrets a century later

Andrew Howell owns the Thornton Distilling Company housed in the oldest standing brewery in Illinois.

The building dates back to 1857 and was controlled by the Capone and Torrio families during Prohibition.

Howell was checking a pathway to see if he could run a conduit through it when he noticed some loose mortar on the side of an underground limestone well.

He pulled back two large pieces of mortar and spotted something that stopped him cold.

Sealed inside what appeared to be an old abandoned exhaust vent from a potbelly stove was a loaded Colt 1908 pistol.

The weapon was still holstered with a full magazine of ammunition from the 1920s.

"I was checking the pathway to see if we could run a conduit through it when I noticed some loose mortar on the side," Howell told Fox News Digital.

Hidden weapons were standard operating procedure for gangsters

Bootleggers and gangsters during Prohibition routinely stashed weapons throughout their operations.

They knew raids by federal agents or attacks from rival gangs could happen any moment.

The Colt 1908 was one of the most popular concealed weapons of the era.

Gangsters loved the compact semi-automatic because it could be hidden in a vest pocket yet still pack enough punch to drop someone at close range.

John Dillinger was carrying a Colt 1908 when FBI agents gunned him down outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago in 1934.

The Colt 1908 fired a .25 ACP round that sent a 50-grain bullet downrange at 815 feet per second.

Bank robber Willie Sutton had one when police captured him in Brooklyn in 1952.

This particular pistol was manufactured in 1921 right in the middle of Prohibition's most violent years.

Officers from the Thornton Police Department ran the serial numbers and confirmed the gun has no criminal record.

"They noted that the ammunition appears to date back to the 1920s," Howell said.

Howell admits he felt a mix of excitement and anxiety when he found the weapon.

"I'm relieved we found it before any guests did, as we host tour groups down there often," he explained.

"The vent is quite offputting, so we feel fortunate that a guest didn't reach in there and explore."

Chicago's gangster past refuses to stay buried

The Thornton Distilling Company sits right in the middle of where Capone ran his empire.

Capone pulled in $60 million a year in the late 1920s from bootlegging.

That's roughly $1 billion in today's money.

He owned thousands of speakeasies and ran booze through underground tunnels snaking beneath Chicago streets.

The fight for control over illegal alcohol turned the city into a killing field.

Capone's boys dressed up as cops and massacred seven North Side Gang members on Valentine's Day 1929.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre made national headlines and Americans finally saw Capone for what he really was.

Prohibition killed 114 people in Texas alone that year in battles between revenue mobsters and bootleggers.

Bootleggers hid liquor and weapons in secret compartments built into cars, boats, and buildings.

Speakeasies had escape tunnels and hidden rooms where guns and booze could disappear the second a raid started.

Howell's crew keeps finding more artifacts at the distillery.

Beer order postcards from the 1860s.

Bottles buried outside the building.

Pre-Prohibition signs dug up from the dirt.

"We plan to showcase the pistol alongside these artifacts," Howell said.

"We look forward to learning more about its history."

Think about who sealed that gun in the wall.

Someone a century ago knew they might need to grab it fast.

They picked a spot behind loose mortar where they could yank it out in seconds if federal agents kicked down the door or rival gangsters came looking for blood.

The weapon waited there loaded for 100 years.

Whoever hid it never came back.

They're long dead and the violent world they lived in exists only in history books now.

But that loaded pistol tells you everything about Prohibition that textbooks never will.

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Sources:

• Andrea Margolis, "Distillery owner shocked by loaded Al Capone-era gun hidden in wall: 'Relieved we found it,'" Fox News, February 2, 2026.
• Mike Nolan, "Hidden History: Prohibition-era gun discovered in walls of Thornton distillery," WGN-TV, January 2026.
• "The Speakeasies of the 1920s," Prohibition: An Interactive History, The Mob Museum, June 20, 2024.