COUDERAY, Wisc. – Long before “The Godfather” made the phrase “going to the mattresses” famous, America’s uber-gangster Al Capone was hiding out in the Midwest.

Now the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwa has purchased the famous mobster’s Wisconsin hideout – a nearly 400-acre property near Couderay for $2.7 million.

The property is located within the exterior boundaries of the tribal nation’s original reservation and is part of multiple properties that were lost through allotment and other land-grab efforts.

“Right now we’re actually very happy, because there was a lot of threatened development there. Apparently, developers were very interested in the property, so at least we prevented that from happening on the reservation,” said Brian Bisonette, secretary treasurer of the tribal council.

He doesn’t know exactly how the property fell into non-Indian ownership, but it was subsequently owned by Al Capone in the 1920s and ’30s.

According to the FBI Web site, Al “Scarface” Capone and his partners in crime took full advantage of the opportunities spawned by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution – the Prohibition Amendment of 1919 – when bootleggers viewed illegal brewing, distilling and distribution of beer and liquor as “growth industries.” The Prohibition Amendment is the only one that has been repealed, and it took another amendment – the 21st in 1933 – to do it.

Meanwhile, Capone ruthlessly eliminated his competition, the FBI site says.

“Perhaps the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates of the ‘Bugs’ Moran mob were machine-gunned against a garage wall by rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob, although Al himself was then in Florida,” according to the FBI.

Capone was never indicted for murder, but spent nine years in jail on tax evasion charges. He died of a stroke in 1947.

Capone used his Wisconsin hideout during the height of his illegal activities. According to a Web site offering information about the hideout, Capone designed and built the place as a fortress. Construction began in 1925, and the main lodge where Capone lived is made of fieldstone and has walls 18 inches thick. The place was lavishly furnished with matching spiral staircases and a huge fireplace in the living room.

The secluded retreat is primarily wooded and has an eight-car garage, guest towers – and two gun towers Bisonette said.

“It’s a beautiful property, but I think people were looking at the nostalgia of it and the fact that Capone had made it his home at times. I think people have capitalized on that over the years. It’s been operated as a restaurant. They actually had a lot of his memorabilia in there and they kind of marketed it as the hideout and it had a ’30s gangster theme, and there were regular tours there. But everything has been stripped away. When we purchased it, we basically bought an empty building.”

The property also includes a 37-acre private lake.

“In fact, there’s a rumor here that he actually stashed treasure in the little private lake. We have no way of knowing if that’s true or not.”

Bisonette said the Indian community welcomed Capone in the 1920s.

“He was one of the few non-Indian people that tribal members held in high regard, because he was one of the few who actually had a car at the time, and I recollect my grandfather telling me that he was one of the few non-Indians who would actually stop and pick up Indians who were walking down the road.”

The tribal nation’s leaders have not decided what will be done with the property.

“We’re still looking at a number of possibilities, but we have to do something in short order there, because we had to borrow money to buy the property and we have to repay the loan. We’ll do whatever makes sense, whatever is going to benefit the tribe the most,” Bisonette said.

The land cannot be put into trust until the loan is paid off, which will take a number of years.

Any plans to dredge the lake looking for that rumored treasure?

“Not yet,” Bisonette said, laughing. “It’s been a pretty exclusive property. Tribal members haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy the property whatsoever, but with this lake now, one of the rumors going around is that it’s a great fishing lake, so I think a lot of tribal members are anticipating visiting the property, visiting the lake and going fishing. That’s probably the first and foremost thing, but who knows? Somebody might decide to go treasure hunting.”