John Dillinger Map Available from Ball State University Libraries

Public Enemies:  Robberies of the John Dillinger Gang Map

The Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) created a map about the life of 1930’s Indiana gangster John Dillinger in 2009 to correspond with the release of the Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies.  The map (above, click to enlarge) and movie are based on a book by Bryan Burrough, Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, which is available in Bracken Library.

Dillinger became known as America’s first “Public Enemy Number One” by the newly-formed Federal Bureau of Investigation following robberies across Indiana and the Midwest.  The map shows the location of the robberies in bright yellow—the Greencastle, Indiana, bank robbery fetched $76,000 on Monday, October 23, 1933.  That was Dillinger’s largest take due to money deposited in the bank following the Wabash University versus DePauw University football game that weekend.

Other places of interest on the map are shown in gray, like Dillinger’s hometown and the Chicago Biograph Theater where Dillinger was killed on this day (July 22) in 1934.  Crown Point is the location of the Lake County Jail where Dillinger allegedly escaped using a wooden gun in 1934.  A new John Dillinger Museum in Crown Point’s Old Lake County Courthouse opens today.

The Dillinger map is available in PDF-format from the Ball State University Libraries’ Cardinal Scholar.  And the GRMC on the second floor of Bracken Library has two copies of the map available for circulation.  (Maps circulate for two weeks or longer).

For more information about this map, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.