On the afternoon of Jan. 29, 1934, Pima County Sheriff John Belton and Under-Sheriff C.S. Farrar entered gangster John Dillinger's jail cell to manacle the outlaw in preparation for extradition. They were preparing to transport him to the Tucson airport for a secret flight out of town.
Dillinger, who had been arrested on Jan. 25 while hiding out in Tucson with some fellow gang members, pulled back from the steel bars and refused to hold out his hands.
"Where are you taking me?" he yelled. The man deemed Public Enemy No. 1 by the FBI — who killed several police officers, robbed at least two dozen banks and escaped from jail twice — kept "viciously screaming," according to newspaper accounts at the time. "You're shanghaiing me! You can't take me out of here without me seeing my attorney." Dillinger braced himself against the cell door shouting, "It's a nice frame-up, boys."
Ultimately cuffed and shackled, Dillinger was unceremoniously dragged down the cellblock hallway and out a jail door to a waiting car headed to the Tucson Municipal Airport for a clandestine flight to Douglas. He had been in Tucson for 10 days, and law enforcement was anxious to get him out of town. Heavily armed guards secured the fugitive on a chartered airplane around 5 p.m. as the winter sun set against the Catalina Mountains.
The Arizona Daily Star reported that Dillinger was placed on a commercial American Airways flight in Douglas later that night at 11:14. After a daylong, arduous trip with stops in El Paso, Abilene, Fort Worth, Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis and St. Louis, Dillinger arrived at the Chicago Municipal Airport (later named Midway) at around 6:10 p.m., in the chill of a frosty evening.
Indiana had won the fiercely contested Dillinger extradition challenge in a Tucson court because of an outstanding murder warrant for an East Chicago Police officer's shooting death during a bank robbery. A motorcade of 13 cars, with 29 Indiana State Troopers, escorted him 52 miles to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana.
On Saturday, March 3, 1934, at around 9:15 a.m., Dillinger overpowered guards and broke out of the jail using a hand-carved wooden gun he made from a washboard blackened with shoe polish. He stole Sheriff Lillian Holley's V-8 Ford, hightailing it north and west out of town to Chicago. Soon after, Dillinger and his gang pulled four bank jobs across the Midwest.
With loot in his pocket, Dillinger carried on an everyday life into the summer months. He lived at a girlfriend's apartment in North Chicago using the alias of Jimmy Lawrence, a clerk at the Chicago Board of Trade. The fugitive attended afternoon Cubs games at Wrigley Field, ate meals in fine restaurants and relaxed in air-cooled movie houses.
Dillinger also hung out with Ana Cumpănaș, AKA Anna Sage, who ran brothels in Chicago, East Chicago, and one near the steel mills on Gary's northwest side. Her nefarious business operation in the Steel City was in the Kostur Hotel. She also managed the establishment's saloon, suitably named the Bloody Bucket.
She set up Dillinger in Chicago with the FBI on July 22, 1934, to help herself with immigration problems. The government considered her "an alien of low morals." Anna, the celebrated Lady in Red, was wearing an orange skirt that looked red under the glare of the Biograph movie marquee lights that sweltering 100-degree night.
The FBI and a multi-state law enforcement task force had the theater staked out that night. When Dillinger and Sage exited the Biograph, FBI Special Agent Melvin Purvis lit a cigar, indicating that it was Dillinger. He yelled, "Stick ’em up, Johnnie, we got you surrounded." Dillinger ran, and four gunshots riddled his body. The alley bricks where he fell ran thick with blood as bystanders soaked handkerchiefs for souvenirs. John Herbert Dillinger died at age 31.
Hundreds showed up for Dillinger Days at Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson for the 28th annual event on Jan. 16, 2022.
The celebration brings the spirit of the 1930s to life in honor of infamous gangster John Dillinger and other bank robbers being captured 88 years ago by Tucson police officers. Video by Jesse Tellez/Arizona Daily Star.
Photos: Outlaw John Dillinger captured in Tucson in 1934
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Arizona Daily Star front page on events surrounding the capture of John Dillinger and his gang in January, 1934.
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Arizona Daily Star front page on events surrounding the capture of John Dillinger and his gang in January, 1934.
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Arizona Daily Star front page on events surrounding the capture of John Dillinger and his gang in January, 1934.
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John Dillinger was one of the most notorious gangsters of the 1930s, wanted for a rash of bank robberies in the Midwest.
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This is a June 1934 FBI "Wanted" poster of John Herbert Dillinger who was considered "Public Enemy No. 1." (AP Photo)
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On display at the History of Pharmacy Museum in the College of Pharmacy at the University of is gum chewed by John Dillinger and deposited under a counter at his regular seat at the Owl Drug Store in downtown Tucson. Jesse Hurlbut who ran the store - filling prescriptions and serving meals - collected the gum after recognizing the gum chewing customer as Dillinger after the outlaw's arrest.
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Standing from what is now the location of Maynards Market & Kitchen, looking across at the north facade of Hotel Congress, ca 1930s, before the fire that engulfed the third floor, forcing the Dillinger gang out.
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This 1923 American LaFrance Fire Engine used by Tucson Fire Department at the 1934 fire at Hotel Congress. The fire at the hotel flushed out three members of the gang, who were noticed by firefighters who remembered mug shots from detective magazines. A ruse pulled one of Dillinger's best gunmen into Police Chief C.A. Wollard's office. Dillinger surrendered to an officer who said, "Reach for the moon, or I'll cut you in half."
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Home where John Dillinger stayed in 1934, located at 927 N. 2nd Ave. Photo taken in 1983. John Dillinger, unaware that the others of his gang were in jail, was nabbed at sundown as he and his girlfriend strolled into the house on Second Avenue.
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News photo of the Tucson Police officers involved in the arrest of John Dillinger in 1934. The Old Pueblo, home to about 30,000 people, had a police force that numbered 35. The average salary for a Tucson Police officer was $140 a month.
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Tucson Police Chief C.A. Wollard, standing at far left, at John Dillinger's (center, with hat on knee) arraignment the morning after his capture.
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In this 1961 picture, Tucson Police Sgt. Tom Keeley holds a Colt Thompson with a 20-round clip and and secretary Linda Bradfield holds a Winchester Model 1907, among the guns confiscated from the John Dillinger gang during Dillinger's capture in Tucson in 1934. In total, police seized three Thompson submachine guns, two Winchester rifles mounted as machine guns, five bulletproof vests and more than $25,000 in jewelry and cash, part of it taken in an East Chicago robbery.
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Tucson Police Office Stan Benjamin holds John Dillinger's Colt Thompson "Tommy" gun with a 50-round magazine at the main police station in Tucson in 1975.
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The Remington .41 caliber Double Derringer pistol confiscated from gangster John Dillinger when he was arrested in Tucson, Arizona on January 25, 1934 -- six months before he was fatally gunned down in Chicago -- sold for $95,600 in a public auction conducted in Dallas, Texas and online by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas (www.HA.com) on July 25, 2009, a few days after the 75th anniversary of Dillinger's death. According to Heritage the winning bidder is a Los Angeles area collector, and the winning bid was more than twice the pre-auction estimate.
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Artifacts at the Arizona Historical Society: At left is a handgun used in the Pantano stage holdup. At right is a gun owned by Billy Stiles, an outlaw/gunman who died in 1908. The cummerbund from John Dillinger's bullet-proof vest is on the table.
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This late April 1924 photo released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a view of Little Bohemia, in Manitowish Waters, Wis., taken by FBI personnel following a raid. John Dillinger and his gang lived there for three days, until federal agents nearly caught up with them. Two men were killed and four were wounded during a gun battle as the gang escaped.
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In this July 21, 1934 file photo, people pose in front of the Biograph Theater at Lincoln and Fullerton Streets as one woman displays the newspaper headline "Dillinger Slain" in Chicago, Ill. Outlaw John Dillinger was shot and killed by federal agents outside the movie theater after watching the feature "Manhattan Melodrama."
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In this film publicity still released by Universal Pictures, Johnny Depp stars as legendary Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger, in a scene from, "Public Enemies."
