SEARCHING FOR CAPONE
Baja trail offers intrigue
TIJUANA, MEXICO Many argue that the golden age of Tijuana was during Prohibition, when the city was mythologized as the première playground for the rich and thirsty. Hollywood stars with a taste for betting and boozing made it a favourite getaway.
With its then-porous land border and miles of wild coastline, Tijuana and neighbouring northern Baja California, proved tempting for many rumrunners during those dry years. Ask any Tijuana local who ran things and you’ll hear one name repeated: Al Capone.
The gangster seems to have left his mark on everything, from an illegal card game at a secluded coastal hideaway to any number of local cantinas. It’s a compelling story. But is it true? I went to find out, heading for a place that’s synonymous with Prohibition-era Tijuana: the Agua Caliente casino.
The original Agua Caliente casino, resort and spa was built in 1928 atop a natural hot spring — hence the name, Spanish for “hot water.”
“Its only rival in the world is Monte Carlo,” declared the Los Angeles Times in 1929, so glamorous was the 655-acre complex, which included an Olympic-size pool, Turkish baths, steam caves, a horse racing track, guest bungalows and 500 hotel rooms. Signed photos of guests Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks adorned the walls, and rooms ranged from $5 to $12 US per night; bathing suits for use in the spa cost 50 cents. The turf for the golf course was said to have been imported from Europe.
Unfortunately, that Agua Caliente went out of business in 1938, and the casino that bears its name today has little in common with its predecessor. Reopened in 2008 at a fraction of the size, the hulking beige building is as generic as anything on the Vegas strip.
José Gabriel Rivera Delgado of the Tijuana Municipal Archive points me toward one of the only testimonies that exist, from a former coat check girl named Elena de La Paz de Barrón, who claimed to have met Capone. Her memory was recorded in a 1982 book, Panorama Histórico de Baja California.
“One day there was a big fuss,” she said. “Police, a big crowd and somebody’s bodyguards, like something out of a movie. Who could it be, we wondered, and somebody said, ‘Nobody special, just Al Capone.’ He wasn’t ugly, with a small scar on his face and a lovely beaver hat. I gave him the ticket, and he smiled at me, like a flirt. Everybody wanted to see the hat. And when it was time to give the hat back, bam! He tips me a $50 bill!”
The original resort site is now Lázaro Cárdenas High School. That’s where I waylay students David and Alejandro, on their way to class, to ask whether they know anything about their school’s checkered past. “My dad used to go here, and he saw the tunnels,” says David, in Spanish.
“Tunnels?” I ask. “Yeah,” he says. “That gringo built them to carry alcohol across during Prohibition. What’s his name? From Chicago?”
“Caponay,” says Alejandro, pronouncing it in Spanish.
“Yeah, Caponay. My dad saw the tunnels. But now they’re covered over.”
They tell me the tunnels ran across the border to San Diego. The claim sounds dubious. In truth, the tunnels were put there to house the resort’s water and electricity ducts, according to a recent book by the late historian Paul Vanderwood.
In search of more clues, I head south on the coast road. If the day were clearer, the Coronados Islands would be visible where the wreckage can still be seen of another failed Baja venture: an offshore casino from the 1930s that people say was run by our friend Alphonse.
I press south, bound for the Castle Restaurant, whose website boasts “the infamous Al Capone built this castle.” The small, twostorey building features walls of volcanic rock a foot thick — Capone demanded bulletproofing, says second-generation owner David Perez Elfman. Perez is convinced of his restaurant’s Capone credentials, telling me he’s heard the story corroborated by friends, neighbours, archeologists — even agents from Mexico’s version of the FBI, although he admits Capone’s name wasn’t on the deed.
“It’s a myth,” writes Mario Gomes curtly in an email. He runs the My Al Capone Museum, an online trove of Capone memorabilia.
There are a hundred places I could go next to investigate Capone ties. But I’m tired of chasing ghosts and whispers. I abandon my hunt and turn down a country road, heading toward Guadalupe Valley wine country, home to boutique wineries, a handful of chic hotels and world-renowned restaurants.
As the sun sets, it occurs to me that 82 years after the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol is still drawing Americans to Baja California. This time, though, Tempranillo and tapas have replaced moonshine.