Eliot Ness Fest: Pa. town celebrates G-Man who helped take down Al Capone

Small Pennsylvania towns between, above, and below Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are always looking for something, any weird hook, that can draw tourists off the highways to spend a dollar or two.

Smethport is the birthplace of the Wild Willy magnetic toy. Bradford makes Zippo lighters. Shenandoah has great kielbasa. Potter County, also known as “God’s Country,” has drawn international attention for its dark skies and spectacular stargazing. Now, its quaint county seat, Coudersport, is trying to pull tourists in with a celebration of something that’s also sort of dark.

Eliot Ness, one of America’s most acclaimed lawmen, died there. Voila! The second annual Eliot Ness Fest starts there Friday, complete with vintage car parades, an Al Capone look-alike contest, movie screenings in the town’s vintage theater, and a 1920s dance at a local bar. Capone’s historic trial on tax charges will be reenacted at the local courthouse.

“I always realized there was some potential in it,” said Paul Heimel, a Potter County commissioner and author of Eliot Ness: The Real Story.

Most people are familiar with Ness through The Untouchables, first the television series, then the 1987 film in which Kevin Costner played the straight-arrow Prohibition agent dispatched to dry up Chicago. Heimel said Ness made almost no money when the TV project was first proposed. Both the series and the film, he said, are wildly inaccurate.

The federal agent who helped take down Capone moved to Coudersport in 1956 because a watermark company he invested in relocated there from Cleveland. The company, Heimel said, was in financial distress. He settled into a house on Third Street and, according to newspaper clips, attended a few local meetings.

Ness was stressed. “The company was spiraling out of control,” Heimel said. “A lot of investors were calling for blood.”

Ness, who was born in Chicago, died in May 1957 of heart failure at age 53. His wife and son left Coudersport a month later. Ness’ ashes were scattered over a pond in a cemetery in Cleveland, where he was a former safety director.

Heimel said Ness’ fame grew after he met wire-service reporter Oscar Fraley, a Philadelphia native, at Coudersport’s Hotel Crittenden to discuss his memoir and a potential television series.

“Fraley made a ton of money. Ness made none,” he said.

Heimel said last year’s inaugural Ness Fest rivaled the annual Tioga-Potter Maple Festival that’s been held there for more than a half-century.

“We had a pretty solid turnout, about 4,500, for the Eliot Ness Fest last year,” he said. “Our town population is only 2,900.”

Coudersport is about 275 miles northwest of Philadelphia, where it’s going to be about 100 degrees Saturday. It’s only supposed to reach 92 in Coudersport, though. Plus, there’s another local attraction, the ice mine, where it’s always a cool 32 degrees.