100 Years Ago Today: The Hawthorne Hotel Attack

 One hundred years ago today was the beginning of a short lived truce in the Chicago gang wars that had plagued the city, well, since the start of prohibition, yes, but for two years in bloodier and more brazen ways than the before. It is also the beginning of the end for someone else and I believe he knew it. 

On September 20, 1926, the infamous Al Capone was eating at the Hawthorne Hotel and Restaurant in Cicero. Outside a lone black car pulled up and fired wildly into the air. A warning possibly to bystanders and a way to get those dining inside to flee. Moments later, seven more cars, like a funeral procession, drove in front of the building. Each fired machine guns into the facade of the hotel. One man shot emptied his weapon from a spot on the sidewalk, unmissable and unmistakable in his boldness. At the end of the caravan, another man, Pete Gusenburg, got out of the car, and as carefully as he could fired so as not to hit a single pedestrian or bystander. His only aim was to hit Capone. Then, ammunition depleted, he returned to the car and the caravan shot off. 

The second man, Pete, is important to the story of Chicago. But the one who made himself the target of Capone’s hatred that day, the man who put himself at center stage for the sake of calling down hellfire, he is the one most associated with the Hawthorne Hotel Attack. And that's the way he wanted it. Earl J. Weiss, known to the press as Hymie Weiss, had a point to make and a score to settle.

After the murder of the first Northside Gang leader, Dean O’Banion, Weiss had taken over as the boss. While, for all intents and purposes, Weiss, Vincent Drucci, and George Moran ran the business together, Weiss was the final word. Vincent was the one who handled the press for him, he didn’t mind the spotlight like Weiss. That’s why in most newspaper articles of the time, you read ‘Drucci and Weiss,’ or ‘Weiss, a member of the Schemer Drucci gang.’ Despite what the press said, Weiss was building the Northside’s bootlegging business and growing it into one that, had he lived, could have rivaled that of the Capone led Outfit. But history didn’t play out that way.

In August of 1926, the body of Al Capone’s driver/bodyguard was found by two boys. The man had been tortured and then murdered with an axe. Because of the general reputation, the press jumped on the idea, in true 1920’s fashion, that it was the Northside gang who had kidnapped him in February, the aim being to get his schedule. The police, who really should have known better, didn’t do much to refute this, and so, the murder of Anthony Cuiringione has long been associated with Weiss and Drucci. Except, it doesn’t fit them–or the Northside gangs–in any way. The Northsiders, founded on friendship and loyalty because that’s what the four bosses were first, friends, followed a strict moral code. No unnecessary murder being one of the top rules. Torture was not done, it was needless and besides that none of them had the attention span or the patience for something like that. Spending hours watching a house and robbing their safe? Yes. Torture to get information that probably wouldn’t get the correct information anyway? No. 

But Capone with multiple people whispering in his ear, well and truly believed that Weiss had done or at least ordered this. And he was paranoid as it was, on August 10th, when Weiss and Drucci were walking down the street, Capone gunmen drove by and opened fire. Weiss ran. Drucci was arrested trying to ride off on the running boards of a passing car (Drucci was nothing if not stylish) and was later bailed out by Mary Weiss, Earl’s mother. Neither had been hit but the damage was done. Because there was nothing that Weiss cared about more than his friends and family. Drucci, who drove him crazy, pranked him, supported him, and had been through everything with him, was one of his best friends. Besides, anyone could have been injured when the men fired. What if a bystander had been hit? The Outfit might not care, but The Northside did. Besides, Earl hadn’t been bent on vengeance, not really, since he got out of jail, the previous year. He was busy with business, his girlfriend, Jo, his family, and the boat he had down in Miami. Not to mention he was dying of an illness on top of it. So, knowing that Capone would never agree to peace as long as he was alive, Earl did the only thing he could think of: put a giant target on his back. 

The Hawthorne Attack was doomed to failure. It’s clearly ridiculous. Bold, brash, brazen? Yes. Reckless, stupid, and most likely to completely miss the target? Also, yes. Unorganized and poorly planned? No. Because it was planned with failure in mind. Not wanted, no. He didn’t want to fail. But if it was going to, it was going to fail well. 

Earl Weiss got his start as an autobandit and then as a safecracker, specializing in nitroglycerine. And he was good at it. Much better than Dean O’Banion. He was meticulous, intelligent and when not caught up in his temper, efficient and terrifyingly brilliant. The Hawthorne Attack plan has none of the indicators that he came up with it. It doesn’t even seem like a Vincent Drucci scheme, once one really looks at it. It’s not nearly invasive enough for Drucci. No, this with its absolute ludicrous design sounds more like George Moran. But it was the perfect way for Earl to get the Outfit’s attention. 

There is no chance of an innocent bystander being hit (the woman who claimed to have been hit the eye wasn’t believed by police, having been just fine immediately after the hit and was most likely paid by Capone to make the Northside look worse). When The Northsiders, Weiss, Drucci, and Moran, famously attacked Torrio in 1925 they made sure his wife and dog were out of the way before they fired. That was the last of the revenge shootings that Earl would have a hand in until Ammatuna, towards the end of that year, when the gunman was none other than Frank Gusenburg, the gunman from the Hawthorne Attack’s brother. And no one except Ammatuna was shot, it was quick, efficient and to the point. Those two, most likely planned by Weiss, show that he didn’t have any desire for anyone unnecessary to get hurt. Hence, the first shooter. To get everyone out of the way. And all the other shooters, to get everyone out of the way. And then himself. He could control where he shot. As for the last gunman, Pete Gusenburg, he hated his job and would have done everything in his power to miss anyone that was not Capone or the Outfit. A fact Weiss would have known and taken into account.

Besides that, he didn’t hide that it was him and he didn’t hide after words either. He knew exactly what he was doing. He could not have been more obvious if he stood on the sidewalk, with a blowhorn and giant neon sign yelling “Hey! Fat man! Look what I’m doing! Come and get me!” But he got what he wanted. He had signed his own death warrant.

Despite one last attempt at peace talks, most likely begged for by Tony Lombardo, Earl Weiss would be dead in almost exactly three weeks. 

Which poses the question of how we remember that day? Was it a magnificent failure of a hit? Or was it a brilliant success of a trap laid for himself? I prefer the latter but you can make your own decision

Sources: 

Binder, J. J. (2017). Al Capone’s beer wars : a complete history of organized crime in Chicago during prohibition. Prometheus Books.

Hymie Weiss. (n.d.). Www.Myalcaponemuseum.Com. Retrieved September 20, 2026, from https://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id89.htm

Keefe, R. (2003). Guns and Roses. Turner Publishing Company.

Keefe, R. (2005). The Man who Got Away The Bugs Moran Story : a Biography. Cumberland House Publishing.

And a special thank you to Vanesa Montacuto for sharing her love of the Northsiders with me and for listening to me ramble about my theories about the Earl Weiss and Victor D’Ambrosio.