John Dillinger's Death Mask and Other Gangster Goodies

Photo taken by AngieD

"DON'T YOU WORRY I WILL BE OUT sometime and believe me I am going to stay out," wrote John Dillinger while in Indiana State Penitentiary. The letter is to his niece and it's a long one in which he expresses happiness at her success in school and even small talk about the weather.

The letter is handwritten by Dillinger in a vein-like scrawl and the paper has yellowed with age. It is currently on display now through July 16 in St. Paul's Landmark Center. According to the Landmark Center's website, in addition to being a post office, the building also originally served as the Federal Court House for the Upper Midwest.

The letter is fascinating, but it's a tough match for the other objects on display. Here is a sample of what this exhilarating retrospective includes:

• A book entitled The Dillinger Book of which there were only a handful of copies made before it was pulled from production. This book apparently infuriated J. Edgar Hoover.

• Another handwritten piece, but much shorter and to the point than the friendly letter mentioned earlier. This note, you see, is an actual hit list penned by Dillinger himself.

• Homer Van Meter's Hat. It's a well-crafted straw number, but slightly ruined. The hat sits under glass with a wooden dowel poking through a spot where the brim meets the crown. The dowel isn't meant as a stand for the hat -- it's to aid in showing the trajectory of the bullet that killed this member of Dillinger's clan on Aug. 23, 1934. Four members of the St. Paul police helped in the final capture of Van Meter, and their signatures can be found written on the leather headband on the inside of the hat. The brand of the hat? Sarnoff New York.

• The beautiful courtroom within the Landmark Center, where this retrospective is on display, should be mentioned as well. The famous trial of Evelyn "Billie" Frechette -- featured recently in the movie Public Enemy -- took place here.

Like many of the pieces in this exhibit, the main attraction likewise lays under glass. Within 36 hours of Dillinger's fatal gunshot, at least four molds were made of his face.

• One of those molds is in this exhibit.

The orangy-yellow form of John Dillinger's dead face sits between black and white photos from when he was first brought to the morgue, still bloodied, and a photo of him cleaned up.

All throughout the exhibit there are photos of Dillinger and from the grin on his face in each and every one of them, it seems he just might have been enjoying being Public Enemy Number One.

Check out this exhibit and see if you will agree, even in death the grin still remains.

RARE JOHN DILLINGER, BARKER-KARPIS GANG ARTIFACTS TO BE DISPLAYED JULY
14-16 AT LANDMARK CENTER, PART OF “PUBLIC ENEMIES” RETROSPECTIVE
Rare opportunity to view original
artifacts from the 1930s gangster-era.

To accommodate crowds, the hours of the exhibit have been extended, and the following artifacts will be on display from 6:00pm-10:00pm July 14-16.