A distillery owner finds a hidden gun from 1924 inside a wall, and historians say it may be tied to Al Capone

History doesn’t always sit politely behind glass at a museum, and Noel Brennan of CBS Chicago says one of the strangest reminders of that showed up in the south suburbs—inside a working distillery that already wears its past like décor.

Brennan’s report takes viewers inside Thornton Distilling Company, a place that doesn’t have to “pretend” it has a story, because the building’s timeline stretches back before Prohibition and straight through the era when Al Capone’s name still carried real fear.

The walls are already packed with artifacts, and owner Andrew Howell tells it like someone who has spent years pulling little pieces of the past out of dusty corners, then turning around and hanging them up for customers to see.

He jokes to Brennan about that nightmare moment anyone who collects antiques knows too well – the “Antiques Roadshow” scene where somebody handles history a little too roughly and the whole thing shatters in their hands – because when you’re surrounded by fragile old objects, you’re always one clumsy second away from ruining them.

But this story isn’t about an old sign cracking or a bottle breaking, because what Howell found wasn’t delicate at all, and it wasn’t meant to be seen in the first place.

Brennan frames it as the kind of discovery that makes a place like Thornton feel less like a business and more like a time capsule that’s still sealed in spots, even after all these years.

A Building With A Bootlegging Shadow

Before the gun ever enters the story, Brennan makes a point that matters: Thornton Distilling Company isn’t just “old,” it’s the sort of old that carries rumors, raids, and underworld fingerprints.

Howell tells CBS Chicago that there were “several raids here on the property,” and he says the distillery’s history is tangled up with the Chicago Outfit’s bootlegging operations.

In Howell’s telling, this wasn’t some small-time backroom setup, either – he says this was what they believe is “the largest bootlegging facility in Chicagoland,” which is a huge claim, but it also explains why people keep looking at this site like it still has secrets.

When a location has that kind of past, every hidden room and sealed-off nook starts to feel suspicious, because you can easily imagine cash, bottles, records, or weapons being tucked away fast when law enforcement showed up.

That’s the part Brennan taps into, because it’s not hard to picture why a gun might end up out of sight down there, especially if the building saw raids and frantic moments where somebody needed to disappear something dangerous.

And yet, even for a place with a bootlegging reputation, there’s something different about finding a firearm, because a sign or bottle is nostalgia, while a loaded pistol is a reminder that the past wasn’t just glamorous – it could be violent.

The Hole In The Wall That Changed Everything

Brennan says Howell thought he had uncovered most of what there was to find, right up until he noticed a hole in a wall far below the distillery, down in an artesian well area that sounds more like a forgotten basement from a crime novel than a modern worksite.

Howell explains to Brennan that the hole appears to be what they think was an old potbelly stove vent, which is a practical detail that makes the discovery feel more believable, because vents and chases are exactly where people hide things when they need them out of sight but not too far away.

What makes the moment so vivid is how ordinary the reason was for reaching into that space, because Brennan reports Howell was simply trying to find a route to run electrical wiring.

He stuck his arm inside looking for a workable path, expecting dust and debris, and instead, as he tells it, “that’s where we found the gun.”

It’s the kind of sentence that lands with a thud because it’s so blunt, and you can almost feel the split-second mental scramble: your hand touches something solid, your brain tries to identify it, and then you realize you’ve just grabbed an object that was designed to kill people.

Brennan identifies it as a Colt 1903 pistol from 1924, and she notes it may be tied to Capone’s Outfit, a possibility that instantly turns a weird find into a piece of Chicago folklore.

That “may” is doing a lot of work, because nobody is claiming a signed receipt from Capone fell out with it, but in a building linked to bootlegging history, a gun from that era is exactly the kind of artifact that invites bigger questions.

And once you start asking those questions, it’s hard to stop, because you begin imagining who shoved it into that wall, why they did it, and whether they ever came back for it.

“I Just Found A Gun Down In The Well”

Brennan asks the kind of question anyone would ask: if you’re holding a 1924 pistol you just pulled out of a hidden wall, who do you tell first?

Howell says he ran upstairs and grabbed Ari Klafter, the head distiller, and the way the two of them describe that moment makes it feel like a scene from a movie – one person shaken and excited, the other trying to figure out if this is a joke.

Klafter tells Brennan that Howell looked “a little bit unnerved” and delivered the line that probably froze the room: he said he “just found a gun down in the well.”

Klafter’s reaction is as human as it gets, because he essentially responds with disbelief – what do you mean you found a gun? – as if the words don’t fit together in a place where people make spirits and give tours.

Then comes the detail that flips the mood from “wild story” to “call someone now,” because Brennan reports they realized the gun was loaded.

That matters for more than safety, because a loaded gun hidden inside a wall suggests it wasn’t tucked away as a harmless souvenir; it was placed there ready for use, and then forgotten or abandoned.

Howell tells Brennan the pistol was holstered, too, which adds another eerie layer, because it implies the person who hid it did so with some care, as if they planned to retrieve it later without it getting damaged.

They called the police, and Brennan says that’s when they learned not just how old the gun was, but how old the ammunition inside it was as well, a detail that sounds almost unbelievable until you remember how sealed-up spaces can preserve things for decades.

Why The Capone Link Feels Plausible – And Why It’s Still A Question

Brennan’s report leans into the idea that historians say the gun could be tied to Capone, and even without a definitive chain of custody, it’s easy to see why that theory sticks.

A 1924 Colt 1903 is exactly the kind of sidearm people associate with that era – compact, concealable, and built for a world where you might need protection or intimidation in a hurry.

And if Thornton Distilling’s property really was raided multiple times, as Howell told CBS Chicago, then the idea of someone stashing a weapon in a vent-like opening during a moment of panic doesn’t sound far-fetched at all.

At the same time, it’s worth keeping a cool head, because “Capone-era” and “Capone-owned” are not the same thing, and true historical attribution is hard even when you have paperwork, which you almost never have with something deliberately hidden.

A gun can be from 1924 and still have nothing to do with Capone personally, because lots of people in Chicago – and far beyond it – carried pistols during those years for reasons that had nothing to do with organized crime.

Still, Brennan isn’t selling it as certainty; she’s presenting it as a possibility that fits the setting, and that’s fair, because the discovery is interesting even if the gun belonged to a nameless worker, guard, bootlegger, or nervous resident who wanted it close but not visible.

Personally, the detail that sticks with me isn’t even the Capone angle – it’s the fact it was loaded and holstered, which makes the object feel less like “lost property” and more like a paused moment in someone’s life that never resumed.

A Display Case With A Story Still In Progress

Brennan reports that the pistol, once hidden in a wall, is now on full display at the distillery, and Howell says it’s “really fun” to share that story with visitors.

That’s an understandable reaction, because if you run a distillery in a building soaked in history, a find like this becomes a centerpiece, something that connects customers to the site in a way no marketing slogan ever could.

But it also raises a quiet, serious thought: when you put an old weapon behind glass, you’re turning a potentially dangerous tool into an artifact, and that shift is exactly how time changes the meaning of objects.

A gun that may have been stashed during raids or conflict is now a conversation starter during tastings, and that’s both fascinating and a little unsettling, because it shows how easily we can romanticize a period that was, for many people, brutal and lawless.

Brennan ends the report with that open-ended idea – who knows what other history is still hiding – because once you find one secret tucked into a wall, you start wondering what else is sealed up in forgotten vents, blocked stairwells, or patched-over doors.

And if nothing else, Howell’s experience is a reminder that the past isn’t always a neat timeline; sometimes it’s a loaded pistol in a dark hole, waiting a century to be found by someone who was just trying to run a wire.