Untouchables

It’s the Roaring ’20s reborn, complete with “The Untouchables” – Eliot Ness and his T-men who cracked down on gangsters in Chicago – and it’s in a small town in Pennsylvania.
For years my husband and I have been driving the more than 250 miles to the north central part of the state to visit his brother.
The route from Bucks to Potter County is cushioned with trees – and trees – and more trees, with sweeping green mountains rearing on all sides.
Coudersport, the county seat, is a handsome little town caught between the Allegheny River and the white pine and hemlock forests of the Allegheny Mountains.
The harvesting of those trees turned it into a boomtown in the 1880s and 1890s when the lumber industry reigned. Proudly ornate Victorian buildings lining its streets reflect its long-ago prosperity. Its handsome Courthouse Square dominates the historic district and logging trucks still pass through town.
Occupied with family matters, we usually just passed through town too, but on this last visit we had a chance to explore, and came upon, of all things, the Eliot Ness Museum.
“Why Coudersport?” I asked myself. “Why not Chicago where Ness and his ‘Untouchables’ fought organized crime and police corruption in the 1920s and sent Al Capone to prison? Or Cleveland, a city Ness, as public safety director, made squeaky clean a decade later?
The answer is simple. Because Ness spent his final years in that little town where he owned a watermark business he hoped would put an end to forgery. While his crime-fighting abilities were supreme, his business acumen was not, and his choice of partners was unfortunate. He died there in 1957 of a heart attack at the age of 54.
It was in Coudersport where he met Oscar Fraley, a reporter whose work was heavy on overstatement and drama, and together they turned Ness’s story into a book called “The Untouchables.”
An ABC television series starring Robert Stack as Ness and Walter Winchell as narrator ran from 1959 to 1963, and in 1967 Kevin Cosner played the crime-buster in a movie. Now, the Eliot Ness Museum is revealing the true story of the man who squashed the bootleggers, corrupt cops and money-grubbing politicians during Prohibition.
As Special Agent for the Treasury Department, this famous lawman, soft-spoken and seemingly fearless, had an aversion to firearms. He rarely carried a gun but was known to wear an empty shoulder holster occasionally.

“Eliot Ness could not be bought. He was a true role model for good law enforcement. That’s especially important now,” said Stephen Green, president and CEO of the museum, as he conducted a tour of the exhibits. Since 2019 Green and other members of the community have turned an old hardware store into an amazing showcase for Ness’s accomplishments. Green worked with Paul W. Heimel, a Potter County commissioner and the author of three books about the “real” Ness, and Curt Weinhold, whose photos line the walls of the museum.
Setting the tone for the museum is a collection of handsome vintage cars reflecting the Ness years – a 1925 Stutz Touring Car, a 1929 Ford Model A Sports Coupe, a 1934 Pierce Arrow sedan and more, including a re-imagined Chicago paddy wagon of the era.
The museum’s jail cell is a great place for photo ops, according to Green, and there’s a striking re-creation of the Lincoln Park garage warehouse in Chicago, scene of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, where the Capone gang wiped out seven members of the Bugs Moran gang. Scenes from the movie and television series play in a mini-theater and there’s a bathtub gin display along with beer barrels and other artifacts of the era.
A soup kitchen with red and white checked tablecloths represents Capone’s failed attempt to improve his public image by serving the poor and unemployed. Soup is actually served there one day a month by costumed reenactors.
Best of all is the big event, the three-day Eliot Ness Fest in July, when antique cars line the street outside the museum, Jack’s Speakeasy welcomes guests and locals don costumes to take part in street theater performances.
Sadly, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no fest will take place this year. In 2019 the event attracted between 4,000 and 5,000 people, many dressed in period costumes, and about 100 vintage cars.
Lois Grover, who lives in nearby Port Allegany, attended the 2019 event.
“With all those old cars lining the streets and the old brick buildings, it was like stepping back into another time,” she said.
It’s an era I’d like to visit when the fest resumes the third weekend of July in 2022.
kathrynfclark@verizon.net

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