On this day in 1929, unknown assailants sent a very different Valentine's message to seven members of Bugs Moran's gang in a garage in Lincoln Park. Known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the murders were the result of the competition between the largely Irish North Siders - headed by Moran and the largely Italian Chicago Outfit, run by Al Capone. The assailants were never conclusively identified but former members of Egan's Rats were suspected of involvement. Egan's Rats were a St Louis gang that had fallen apart in the mid-1920's following the conviction of its leaders. One crew of ex-Rats committed numerous robberies, kidnappings and contract murders, including (allegedly) the Massacre.
Several factors contributed to the timing of the plan to kill Moran. Moran and Capone had been vying for control of the lucrative Chicago bootlegging trade. Moran had also been muscling in on a Capone-run dog track in the Chicago suburbs, and he had taken over several saloons that were run by Capone, insisting that they were in his territory. Earlier in the year, North Sider Frank Gusenberg and his brother Peter unsuccessfully attempted to murder Jack McGurn. The North Side Gang was complicit in the murders of Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo and Antonio "The Scourge" Lombardo. Both had been presidents of the Unione Siciliana, the local Mafia, and close associates of Capone.
Moran died of cancer in Leavenworth Federal Prison in 1957, ten years after Al Capone passed away in his mansion on Palm Island, FL
The garage was demolished in 1967 and is now the parking lot for a nursing home.