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The 75th anniversary of John Dillinger’s death this past week brought some new revelations. I hadn’t heard that he had robbed a bank in Montpelier during his brief criminal career, or a bank in our Ohio namesake. Hadn’t heard any rumors of a Bluffton gunsmith who had aided him. Apparently there is a name floating around, but never confirmed.
After the story ran Wednesday, I heard even more tidbits. “Local legend” in Liberty Center says that one of his gang members lived there, right next door to the local bank no less. The legend says Dillinger was a frequent guest.
It seems incongruous that someone who has killed police officers in the line of duty would be regarded as some sort of “Robin Hood.” In my brief research in writing the story about his local connections, never did I find any mention of giving his loot to anyone other than his cohorts or to prostitutes.
There was certainly a legend about him, and it probably had something to do with the times which, being in the depths of the Great Depression, were indeed tough.
Legend has it that he posed as a bank alarm systems salesman and once inside, proceeded to rob his potential customers. Another tale says his gang pretended to be scouting out locations for a bank robbery scene for a movie. Bystanders and customers stood and smiled while a real robbery ensued.
But the most enlightening part of the story for me was a glimpse into how newspapering was done 75 years ago. The writing styles were obviously different and this local newspaper’s reaction to the news bulletins and what they produced is, I think, quite remarkable.
Take this opening lead to a story: “A boy from a little Indiana farming town who ‘went sour’ on the law ten years ago lay on a slab in the county morgue today, stripped of all his infamous glamour.”
Although born in Indianapolis, the family moved to nearby Moorseville because his father, John Dillinger, Sr., felt that the city was being a bad influence on his son, who was perpetually getting into trouble at school. Another story described the anguish his father was experiencing following the shoot out in Chicago on July 22, 1934: “Old and broken with worry over his wayward son, John Dillinger Sr. bears up stolidly under sorrow in his Moorseville home.” J.D. Sr. was the person who drove to Chicago, identified and claimed his son’s body and took it to Indianapolis for burial in Crown Hill Cemetery. (That cemetery has had to replace his tombstone several times over the years because tourists chip off pieces as a souvenir. Go figure.)
Seventy-five years ago, the Evening News-Banner was indeed an evening paper. This is evidenced by the inclusion of the story of the Montpelier bank robbery which appeared the same day of the robbery even though it took place at 2:30 in the afternoon. I have to wonder what time their normal press run took place, and what time the average home subscriber received their daily edition.
The News-Banner’s coverage of his death is most notable by the rare Special Edition they produced overnight upon the news bulletin from Chicago. I see this as the equivalent of us gathering a story and posting it on our Web site before we publish the next edition, only on a much larger scale. Getting a special edition out on Sunday night, getting it on the street at 3 a.m., was no small feat particularly considering the “technology” of the time: writing on manual typewriters, editing, re-writing, Lynotype machines, lead-moldings of photographs, heavy press plates, etc.
In their rush, the staff neglected to change the date of the edition, apparently using the Saturday, July 21, 1993 front page as a starting point. Thus, they reported an event that took place on July 22, 1934 in a newspaper dated July 21, 1934.
Future historians may conclude that News-Banner editors were clairvoyant, but we will know them to be innovative, hard working and willing to go the extra mile to get their readers the news as fast as they can.
Something we try to emulate every day.
miller@news-banner.com
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