Couderay, Wisconsin -
The Hideout: Al Capone's Northwoods Retreat - Closed

I tried to visit Al Capone's Hideout today, May 26, 2009 and found it to be closed with a "no trespassing" sign. The sign that apparently used to be on the main road is gone. The website is defunct and the phone number doesn't exist any more. [WJM, 05/26/2009]

This is one of several former gangland hideouts of Al Capone that are now tourist attractions, satisfying any curiosity that falls midway between a visit to Hearst Castle and an episode of Cops. "Hideout" gives the wrong impression; this is an estate, if an odd one. It has walls 18 inches thick, a guard tower, a bunkhouse, and a private jail cell and exercise yard (for gangland rivals, not Al). The current management offers 40-minute guided tours of the grounds -- ten buildings in all. There's also a gift shop and a restaurant -- which used to be Al's eight-car garage -- and a "nationally recognized recreation," with wax dummies, of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day massacre. [Roadsideamerica.com Team, 12/02/2005]

Al Capone, America's most notorious gangster, built a gangland hideout in Wisconsin's North woods near Couderay in the mid-1920s. Today, 40-minute tours of this estate take viewers through Capone's living quarters in the impressive main lodge and around the ground's 9 additional buildings including the gun tower, bunkhouse and jail cell, a single-person cell which is surrounded by a small exercise yard. The estate's 18-inch thick walls were built to withstand potential firepower from rival gangs as well as the Feds. [Cathy Dobbratz, 03/20/2005]

In Capone's heyday, this is one of the places he would go to "get away from it all" -- at least from the coppers anyway. I was only 10 or so when my family and I went there, but it's still around, it was a lot of fun. You get to tour his house, there was a place where he'd hold prisoners, there's a guard's tower when you first drive up, his old garage is made into a great restaurant. My family and I keep meaning to go back again but, it hasn't happened yet -- I know my 3 year old would get a kick out of it. [LeAnn, 04/16/2003]