HISTORY1 - Tucson's Hotel Congress Fire and the Capture of John Dillinger
In my first group of history articles on this blog, I want to provide a
flavor of my recent writing that I collected and self-published in three
electronic books available for reading on my website, ringbrothershistory.com, under “Bob’s
Projects.” This article is adapted from
Tucson Reflections - Living History from the Old Pueblo.
For ten months in 1933, John Dillinger and his gang terrorized the Midwest with multiple bank robberies, wild chases, daring prison breaks, and violent machine gun battles.
In January, 1934 Dillinger and three of
his gang were “laying low” in Tucson, two gang members at the Congress Hotel,
while the police and FBI were madly searching back east for “Public Enemy No.
1.”
The three-story Congress Hotel was built
in 1919 - the same year that the nation’s first municipally owned airport
opened in Tucson. On the morning of
January 23, 1934, a fire broke out in the basement of the hotel. The first alert was by telephone at 7:16 am
as recorded in the Tucson Fire Department’s (TFD) “Daily Report of Fires.” TFD history records, written after the fire,
tell the story:
“1-23-1934 Congress
Hotel … 3rd fire in month. 15
yr. old bldg. valued at $250,000. Day clerk Mrs. Helga Nelson stayed at
telephone exchange box awakening guests.
Went dead as she
finished calling 2nd floor guests.
P.D. [Police Department] and employees ran
thru 3rd floor to warn guests. Started near oil furnace and oil supply. 3 general alarms brought every piece of equipment. Roberts = chief. [2 ladder trucks] 5 pumpers. … Flames spread up elevator shaft. 100 guests got out safely. … Roof fell in at 8 a.m. Cupola over front entrance fell at 8:30 … extinguished by 10:30 a.m. ... 3rd floor wrecked, rest of building flooded.”
Firemen helped hotel guests escape from
the third floor of the hotel with a ladder.
A couple of distraught men offered two firemen a $12 tip to go back up
the ladder and retrieve their luggage.
The firefighters remembered that several pieces of the luggage were very
heavy.
Later, back at the fire station, while
reading True Detective magazine, the
firemen recognized the two men from the fire as Dillinger gang members and
wanted fugitives. They reported the
luggage incident to the police who began a surveillance operation at the
address where the heavy luggage was delivered after the fire.
On January 25th John Dillinger and his
three gang members were arrested without incident at three different locations
in downtown Tucson. The heavy luggage
was found to contain machine guns, rifles, pistols, revolvers, and bullet proof
vests - far more firepower than Tucson police officers had.
Dillinger was extradited to Chicago
where a month later he escaped jail using a fake carved pistol. Five months after that on July 22, 1934
Dillinger was shot dead by FBI agents while resisting arrest when exiting the
Biograph Theater in Chicago.
The Congress Hotel was renovated and
today offers 40 vintage rooms, a restaurant with sidewalk seating, nightclub,
salon, and banquet room. The building was added to the National Historic Register
in 2003.
Since 1992 Tucson has honored the
capture of John Dillinger with an annual Dillinger Days celebration, stressing
Tucson’s role in history. Re-enactments relive the Dillinger gang’s last bank
robbery in Chicago prior to their arrival in Tucson, as well as the series of
events leading to the gang’s capture in and around Downtown.
 |
| Firefighters stream water into the third floor of the Congress Hotel during the fire on January 23, 1934. (Courtesy of Tommy Stefanski) |
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