Agnes Hall, born in 1895
At age 95, Agnes lived in the house built
by her grandmother, Martha Condon, shortly after the Civil War. The area was first known as Harris, and later
it became known as
Agnes tells an intriguing story about what
happened while she was managing the Florosa Inn during the 1930s. She suspected that a man who seemed to be in
charge of a group of men from
“I told him that I
wasn’t going to have any roughhousing or drinking here,” she told the man. “I told him if he was going to do that, he
could just go back to
She says that the man seemed to
understand. He and his friends stayed
overnight and left the next day. She
figured he got the message. Later, she
was surprised when she overheard a waiter talking about the man. “I knew who Al Capone was but I didn’t know
that was him (at the inn) at the time!”
Agnes’ niece said that the brush with this
notorious gangster was uneventful. Agnes didn’t know why he chose that inn,
“The hotel was vacant. When I found out
who he was, I thought I was crazy for talking to somebody like him the way I
did.”
This encounter with Capone probably happened before 1931 because he was convicted of income tax invasion sometime that year. For years since, there was been much speculation about Capone having a ‘hide out’ in the area.