Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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I’LL BE DAMNED



John Dillinger made his ornery way through the Great Depression not by honest toil or sacrifice, but by robbing banks and killing anyone who didn’t like it. By January of 1934 he had made it to the top of the most wanted listed list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. J. Edgar Hoover, the cross-dressing bulldog at the head of the FBI, affectionately referred to Dillinger as Public Enemy Number One. Every law dog in the country was on the lookout for him or any member of his gang. Their pictures were everywhere. In January of 1934 the Dillinger Gang was taking its leisure among the gentle folks and the salubrious climate of Tucson, AZ. Members of the gang were Harry Pierpont, Russell Scott, and Fat Charlie Makley. The three of them took up lodging at the Congress Hotel downtown near the train station. Dillinger would join them in a few days. Scott set about the task of locating a rental house where the gang could relax in greater privacy than could be had at the Congress. The place he found was a bungalow located at 927 N. Second Avenue; near the University of Arizona. Before they could move in Fat Charlie screwed everything up with his big mouth. On January 21 the Congress Hotel somehow caught on fire. The firemen came through to roust everyone outside, but Fat Charlie didn’t want to go without his luggage. When they finally did get him outside he bribed a couple of firemen to go back for it. Those firemen thought it was pretty strange behavior and soon as they put the fire out, got back to the station and settled comfortably back in with their detective magazines they recognized a photo of Fat Charley and called the cops. Fat Charley, in the meantime, could not keep himself from bragging to the local rubes in a saloon about how easy it was to rob a bank. The rubes called the cops too and the cops started in watching Fat Charley. He soon led them to Harry. The cops had to trace the luggage to the house that Scott had rented. Fat Charley was arrested in a local radio repair shop. Harry was pulled to the curb in a routine traffic stop near Sixth Avenue and Nineteenth Street. Scott was arrested at the rental home in possession of nice luggage full of guns, ammo, and bullet-proof vests. The gang was already in custody by the afternoon of January 25 when detectives on a stakeout surprised Dillinger approaching the house along the sidewalk. He was taken without incident beyond exclaiming incredulously as the cuffs snapped shut, “I’ll be damned”. Dillinger was a bit of a hot potato to be handled for very long by the intrepid Tucson Police. He was extradited as quickly as possible back to Crown Point, Indiana to face a murder charge. Much to chagrin of the Lake County Sheriff, who had been bragging that the jail was escape proof, Dillinger broke out on March 3, 1934. He needed a new gang and took up with Baby Face Nelson. Their crime spree took on an added dimension of violence that attracted greater police attention. Dillinger was gunned down like a rat by FBI Agent Melvin Purvis and members of the Chicago Police Department on July 22, 1934 outside the Biograph Theater. Baby Face continued along on his merry way until he was killed on November 27in a brisk gun battle in Barrington, IL. 1934 was a busy summer for Melvin Purvis, of the FBI. He was a fine policeman, but his increased popularity and success in bringing down vicious killers led to his dismissal from the FBI in 1935. The agency was not big enough for both “L’il Mel”, as Purvis was known among his fellow agents, and the cross-dressing bulldog who was his boss.

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Photos

CONGRESS HOTEL
The Congress Hotel in downtown Tucson is only about 300 yards from where Wyatt Earp mudered Frank Stillwell.

DILLINGER
This is the little bungalow that was rented by Russell Scott. Both Scott and Dillinger were arrested here.