Rapid City Chamber of Commerce president Dan Evans told Capone that in the Black Hills "the stranger is not judged by reports of his past record."

Maybe Dan Evans wanted some publicity or maybe he thought Al Capone, the famous Chicago gangster, would make a good neighbor. In March 1930, barely a year after the Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, Evans sent a letter to Capone inviting him to move to the Black Hills. As the president of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce, Evans told Capone that in the Black Hills "the stranger is not judged by reports of his past record."

South Dakota Governor W. J. Bulow was not pleased with Evans' efforts to bring Capone to the state. "We don't want Capone or any of his kind in South Dakota," the governor told reporters. "We have a law abiding state as far as the gang racket goes and we propose to keep it so."

Capone, who was being investigated by Eliot Ness and the Bureau of Prohibition, said he appreciated the invitation, but he had no desire to move to the Black Hills. A year later, he was indicted for tax evasion and eventually landed in the Alcatraz federal penitentiary. (Source: Chicago Daily Tribune, March 29, 1930.)