The Untouchables

If you have watched the TV show The Untouchables, which was later made into a movie starring Kevin Costner, you are already familiar with the story of the man who, along with his team of nine agents, were the real life models for the fictional screen characters. Eliot Ness, who was born in Chicago, earned a law degree and a masters in criminology from the University of Chicago, then went to work for the Chicago Bureau of Investigation, where he rapidly rose in the ranks and gained a reputation for incorruptibility. Ness and his team were responsible for the arrest and conviction of Al Capone, the notorious racketeer and bootlegger.

After Prohibition ended, Ness was transferred to the Treasury Department's Alcohol Tax Unit in Cleveland, Ohio as the head of the Northeast Ohio unit. While in Cleveland he formed another team of "Untouchables" and with them was responsible for reducing corruption and gambling as well as forming the Cleveland Police Academy and significantly reducing Cleveland's number of auto fatalities.

Eventually Ness retired to Coudersport, Pennsylvania where he began work on his memoir, not surprisingly titled The Untouchables. The book was published after his death in 1957 at the age of 55. Ness's body, as he had requested, was returned to Cleveland where his ashes were sprinkled by members of the Cleveland Police Department on a pond in Lakeview Cemetery (the final resting place of many famous people who may become subjects of later blips). Today's blip is the monument, placed near a pond in the cemetery, to commemorate the life of this untouchable man. I snapped the picture this afternoon when I visited Lakeview on a "field trip" with my daughter and her family. I could also have posted a blip of the memorial to James A Garfield, the 20th U.S. president, but decided to save him for another day and try to get a better picture of his amazing monument.