Television has come a long way since 1986. Back then, the family huddled around a big box TV to watch The Cosby Show and Family Ties. TV remotes were scarce; VCRs (not DVRs) were the primary way to watch content on demand, and TV Guide was the unsung hero of the age.

While the Super Bowl is now consistently the biggest television event of the year, back in 1986, a very different kind of event occurred that set a record for the most-viewed TV show in television history: the mystery of Al Capone's Vault.

The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault

In a unique, first-of-its-kind event, "The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault" was a two-hour live special hosted by Geraldo Rivera, showcasing a team of excavators breaking into a recently discovered vault in the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, IL, that Al Capone, also known as "Scarface," once owned.

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The "mystery" of the vault was both the draw for the audience at home and the crew breaking into the vault. Nobody knew what was inside the vault or if it contained anything, for that matter. Everyone wanted to know what was inside the vault, but no one more than host Geraldo Rivera.

The broadcast featured periodic updates on the team's progress in breaching the vault, along with interviews, the discovery of the vault, and a backstory on Al Capone's reign across Chicago and parts of Michigan.

READ MORE: See Chicago From Michigan: The Science Behind the Skyline Mirage

However, the mystery of the vault ultimately turned out to be what every producer on the program feared: empty. All that was found inside the vault was an old stop sign and a few empty bottles.

The Mystery 20 Years Later

In a retrospective interview, 20 years after the program happened, Rivera reflected on his initial disappointment with the event, saying that the vault being empty made him "the punchline of many jokes" and he felt "humiliated and deeply embarrassed", thinking his career was over.

That is, until the next day, when the ratings came out and Rivera learned that the program had become the most-watched event in television history (at the time), with 30 million viewers glued to their screens to see what was inside the vault. The special, despite not finding anything special, proved to be a hit and propelled Rivera into the national spotlight. So even though it wasn't the spectacular find people hoped for, it is a special still remembered to this day.

Al Capone's Michigan Connection

Al Capone spent a good amount of time in Michigan, for both business and pleasure. Al Capone dabbled in nearly every illegal business during his reign, but his top source of income was illegal booze from Canada. On the business side of things, Grand Rapids was under his gang's territory and it is rumoured he frequented Nick Fink's bar, the oldest bar in GR. He had a business partnership with the Purple Gang in Detroit, who smuggled most of the booze from the east side of Michigan to the West side, so his gang's presence here was well established.

But Michigan was more of a place of pleasure for Scarface. When he needed to get away from the heat of Chicago, he would vacation in Michigan. He reportedly owned a mansion in Constantine, Mi called "Purgatory", though much of the house is gone today. Additional reports claim he owned a home in Paw Paw on Three Mile Lake, and this home is still standing. It sold as recently as 2018 and was valued at $1.1 million in 2023.

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