We wrap up our virtual tour of downtown Hooterville with a couple of final photos.
This is a classic barrio two-family home. It is brick, maybe adobe, with a stucco finish. The home has thick walls and limited windows, which helps to keep the interior cool. This home was built in 1904 and has been restored.
This building is part of what is called the Rialto Theater block, anchored by the...wait for it...the Rialto Theater. The mural covers the west wall of the block. I'm not sure who painted it.
The theater was built in 1919 and has been closed and opened many time since. It has been a stage theater, a movie theater, a porno movie house and was even used for storage by a furniture company. It is now open as a special events venue (I think).
Across the street is the Congress Hotel, made most famous as a key location in the capture of John Dillinger in Hooterville on January 23rd, 1934.
Dillinger and his gang had been on a crime spree across the Midwest and were the top target for law enforcement agencies everywhere. Dillinger and his gang headed to Tucson to lay low.
A few days earlier, the Hotel Congress caught fire and two of the guests, Dillinger henchmen, Charles Markley and Russel Clark, paid two local firemen $12 to go into the fire and retrieve their possessions. One of the firemen recognized Clark from a magazine photo and notified police.
The police traced the delivery of the bags to an address on N. 2nd Avenue and while they had the place staked out, Dillinger arrived and was taken into custody.
Dillinger asked that the news of his capture not be reported because he said it would be an embarrassment if people found out that he was captured by a small-town hick police force. It didn't work though, every year we have a Dillinger Days festival to celebrate the 1930's and the capture of Dillinger.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
This is a classic barrio two-family home. It is brick, maybe adobe, with a stucco finish. The home has thick walls and limited windows, which helps to keep the interior cool. This home was built in 1904 and has been restored.
This building is part of what is called the Rialto Theater block, anchored by the...wait for it...the Rialto Theater. The mural covers the west wall of the block. I'm not sure who painted it.
The theater was built in 1919 and has been closed and opened many time since. It has been a stage theater, a movie theater, a porno movie house and was even used for storage by a furniture company. It is now open as a special events venue (I think).
Across the street is the Congress Hotel, made most famous as a key location in the capture of John Dillinger in Hooterville on January 23rd, 1934.
Dillinger and his gang had been on a crime spree across the Midwest and were the top target for law enforcement agencies everywhere. Dillinger and his gang headed to Tucson to lay low.
A few days earlier, the Hotel Congress caught fire and two of the guests, Dillinger henchmen, Charles Markley and Russel Clark, paid two local firemen $12 to go into the fire and retrieve their possessions. One of the firemen recognized Clark from a magazine photo and notified police.
The police traced the delivery of the bags to an address on N. 2nd Avenue and while they had the place staked out, Dillinger arrived and was taken into custody.
Dillinger asked that the news of his capture not be reported because he said it would be an embarrassment if people found out that he was captured by a small-town hick police force. It didn't work though, every year we have a Dillinger Days festival to celebrate the 1930's and the capture of Dillinger.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
12 comments:
I wish we had days around stories like that. Very interesting, Merle.
Very cool! Union Station in Kansas City, where I grew up, had bullet holes in the facade from some gangster related shooting. No celebration, though.
So weird to realize how long ago that was,isn't it?
Rey, not surprisingly, that was the Kansas City Massacre. Pretty Boy Floyd and his gang tried to free Frank Nash from custody by attacking the police at Union Station. Nash was being transported to prison via the train.
Rather than being a cause for celebration, four police officers were killed in the shootout.
Reya, not Rey...my fingers don;t always type what I think.
I didn't know criminals could make requests like that.
Um, what exactly do you do during dillinger days?
would there be any actual people in photos showing the Dillinger Days celebrations?
I'm sorry our virtual tour is over.
Interesting mural! (Of course you knew I'd latch onto that.) I'm guessing it's the work of several artists, since the styles are all so different.
I never heard that Dillinger story before. Interesting! Isn't it weird how communities celebrate outlaws? Tampa has a big annual festival based on a legendary pirate.
When I was a kid and fake pirates chased me at that Gaspar thing in Tampa (they were trying to give me fake dubloons but i didn't realize that.)
on dillinger days, do people pretend to rob a bank?
Dennis likes the brainy green skull.
excuse me but there must be more to hoooterville than this. Ps. can I "steal" a couple of your ideas from past posts (death penalty etc) ( and the paige quote?) I will give you credit . I have a jumble of things that all were inspired by your posts .
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