James Vincenzo Capone

Who was James Vincenzo Capone?

Richard James Hart was the oldest brother of Al Capone, the most noted gangster in 1920s and '30s in Chicago.

James Capone left home at age 16 and moved from Brooklyn to Nebraska, ostensibly to join a circus. He worked to lose his Brooklyn accent and tried to disguise his Italian ancestry as well. He enlisted in the Army in World War I, served in France, and earned a commission as a lieutenant.

After the war, Capone legally changed his name to Richard James Hart, partly in honor of his favorite cowboy film star, William S. Hart. He married in 1919 and soon became a federal Prohibition agent, making his home in Homer, Nebraska. Following a series of successful raids against bootleggers, he gained the nickname of "Two-gun" Hart. In the mid-1920s, newspaper reporters learned of his kinship to the Chicago gangster; the resulting publicity forced Hart and his family to move from Homer.

In 1926, Hart became a special agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was assigned to the Cheyenne Indian reservation in South Dakota. While there he once had the duty of protecting President Calvin Coolidge and his family on their visit to the Black Hills.