Master bankrobber John Dillinger symbolized a way out of the Great Depression for millions of Americans as banks foreclosed on mortgages and wiped out people's life savings. His cynical attitude and sense of humor captured the public's imagination. Screaming banner headlines and grainy newsreel footage detailing his dramatic heists and shootouts contributed to his larger-than-life persona. Many viewed the charismatic Dillinger as a Tommy gun-wielding, modern day folk hero.
None of Dillinger's colorfully named criminal contemporaries of the 1930s came close to matching his daring exploits and impudent reputation. Between May 1933 and July 1934 Dillinger and his gang amassed a staggering loot of $300,000 from 12 banks in six states, pillaged three Indiana police arsenals, hatched three spectacular jail breaks and skillfully eluded several police traps while leaving at least 46 people dead, wounded or imprisoned during a terrorizing crime spree throughout the upper Midwest.
Vaulting over marble bank counters with the agility of a second baseman during precisely timed, elaborately planned bank robberies and treating bank staff with courtesy were two of Dillinger's trademarks.
"He was the front man like the lead singer in a band," said Philip Struebig of Crown Point, Ind. "He was the show, but everybody else made it go."
Struebig's parents were in their 20s when they watched Dillinger speed down Main Street in Sheriff Lillian Holley's Ford V-8 after the infamous Crown Point Jail escape with a wooden gun on March 3, 1934. He reportedly sang the popular "Git Along Little Doggie Git Along" as he drove away, according to his two hostages.
"He had flair," Struebig said. "I don't know where he got that unless his M.O. was to be Mr. Tough Guy and a leader instead of a follower."
Dillinger was born in Indianapolis in 1903. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison at age 21 for the assault and attempted armed robbery of elderly Mooresville, Ind., grocer Frank Morgan. He served nine years of his sentence at the Indiana State Reformatory at Pendleton, Ind., and the Indiana State Prison ("The Big House") in Michigan City. Dillinger's 31-year-old accomplice Ed Singleton, was tried before a different judge, received a lighter sentence and was paroled within two years. The experience apparently embittered Dillinger.
While serving time, he met several hardened criminals such as Harry "Handsome Harry" or "Pete" Pierpont, John "Red" "Three-fingered Jack" Hamilton, Homer Van Meter, Charles "Fat Charley" Makley, Russell Clark and Walter Dietrich. They mentored Dillinger in robbing banks and were later his accomplices in many heists. Dillinger sprung them and and five others from "The Big House" four months after his parole in May 1933 when he was about to turn 30. It was the largest mass prison escape in Indiana history and one that he financed and engineered.
The FBI killed Dillinger near the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934.