Vacation with Capone, Dillinger, and ‘Baby Face’ Nelson
The ended up in Northern Wisconsin at the Little Bohemia Lodge, a summer resort with few visitors in the off season. The lodge had been built and was operated by Emil Wanatka, an emigrant of Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. On April 20, 1934, Dillinger and gang members Homer Van Meter, John "Red" Hamilton, Tommy Carroll, and "Baby Face" Nelson, along with their wives and girlfriends, traveled in three cars to the Little Bohemia.
The FBI was tipped off as to their presence and Melvin Purvis, who was in charge of the Chicago FBI office, took ten agents and flew from Chicago to Rhinelander, Wisconsin. They met up with a deputation from the St Paul office under the command of Hugh Clegg.
The plan to surround the lodge and capture the gang ended with an innocent patron being killed, and two others wounded, when FBI agents opened fire thinking the gang was attempting to escape. Dillinger and his gang put into use a well planned escape and went out the back. The FBI agents in front of the lodge opened fire spraying bullets into the Little Bohemia Lodge.
Dillinger, Van Meter, Hamilton, and Carroll escaped clean and headed for St. Paul. Nelson stayed and fought before slipping out a backdoor. He encountered two State Troopers and an FBI agent sitting in a car at a nearby roadblock. Nelson wounded the two State Troopers and killed the FBI agent before stealing the car to make his getaway.
As for the Little Bohemia, it became well known as the place where the shootout had occurred. Wanatka preserved many of the bullet holes in the windows and walls. Dillinger and his men had left behind all of their personal items and Emil Wanatka put these items on display.
The Little Bohemia is now only a restaurant, but you can eat in the back dining room with a view of the bullet holes and read the original newspaper accounts of the Battle of Little Bohemia.
http://www.littlebohemia.net/
Little Bohemia Restaurant
Manitowish Waters, WI
715-543-8433
Additional Resources on Dillinger :
John Dillinger - Little Bohemia
By Allan May with Marilyn Bardsley
Interview with Richard Lindberg By John William Tuohy
Death Comes
to Little Bohemia This version is interesting because an "important exception" is noted at the end of the tale.
Valley of the Molls - Part I and Part II
Tells what happened to the wives and girlfriends who
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