Letters to the Editor

An Additional Observation of Al Capone in Benld

My father, Louis Sanvi, was born in 1909 on a farm north of Mt. Olive, Illinois. As many young men did at the time, he quit school at 14 years of age. Most of these young men went to work in one of the area coal mines. Fortunately, my father got a job driving a team of horses and wagon for a local freighter.

It was around 1926 when three boxcars of sugar were delivered to the Wabash Railroad siding in Mt. Olive. In 1970 a couple of years before his death, my father told me that he and two other teams hauled that sugar to Capone’s still east of Benld, Illinois. The still was guarded by about half a dozen men with rifles while whiskey came out in a stream like an open faucet.

After the sugar was delivered, my father and the other men went to Tarro’s to get paid. When they approached Dominic Tarro, he was playing cards with a revolver resting next to him on the table.

According to the late Wally Howard, Dominic Tarro had been summoned to Springfield to testify before a Grand Jury. Before he could appear, his body was found in the Sangamon River with his hands wired behind his back. Apparently, someone was not interested in hearing his testimony. My father rarely spoke to me growing up. So, when he did, believe he was telling the truth.

Bob Sanvi

Staunton Resident