Original publish date: June 10, 2011 Reissue Date April 2, 2020
2009 was the year of John Dillinger. 75 years after being gunned down in a Chicago alley, the Hoosier bandit was the subject of a hit movie starring Johnny Depp this past summer. Did you know that Dillinger’s only Indianapolis bank robbery occurred just around the corner from Irvington? On Wednesday September 6, 1933, Dillinger, along with Hilton Crouch and his cousin John Vinson, robbed the Massachusetts Avenue State Bank of nearly $ 24,000 in cash.
Located at 815 Massachusetts Avenue near the headquarters of the Indiana State Police, Dillinger and Vinson brazenly strolled into the bank with guns drawn. Assistant manager Lloyd Rinehart, seated at his desk chatting casually on the telephone, heard someone yell: “This is a stickup! We mean business.” He later told police that he thought it was a joke and didn’t even look up to interrupt his conversation. “Get off that damned telephone,” Dillinger snarled. Rinehart looked up from his desk to find he was staring into the barrel of a .45 automatic.
Two bank patrons, George Alexander and Francis Anderson, upon seeing the 2 armed bandits, instinctively raised their arms into air. Dillinger yelled at them to put their arms down, fearing the overt submissive gesture would draw immediate attention from passersby on the streets outside. While gracefully leaping over the bank railing with his pistol aimed at the teller’s head, Dillinger ordered cashier A.J. Krueger to open the cash drawers and fill the cloth sacks with loot.
While nervously adjusting his handkerchief-mask and waving his pistol in the air, Vinson pestered Dillinger to “Hurry Up, Hurry Up.” Dillinger casually emptied all of the cash drawers and made his way to the vault. There he discovered a cache of 1,000 half dollars which he gleefully threw over the top of the teller cage bars to Vinson as the Hoosier bandit giggled like a schoolboy. Unbeknownst to them, the bandits had stumbled upon the payroll of the “Real Silk Hosiery Company”, which was the nation’s largest shipper of c.o.d. parcel post packages whose headquarters were located in the Lockerbie Square area. (The building has since been converted to stylish apartments and condominiums.)
From his exterior lookout position, driver Crouch gunned the engine of the recently stolen blue Desoto and the trio made a clean getaway up Michigan Avenue headed for Chicago. Dillinger divided the loot on the way and the trio parted company forever. Crouch openly flaunted his newfound riches, buying a Chicago tavern and marrying a 17 year old socialite after publicly wining and dining her. By December, Crouch was behind bars. Vinson, on the other hand, took his eight grand and disappeared. He was never heard from again. Dillinger, well, you know what happened to him.
Published by Alan E. Hunter- Irvington
Alan E. Hunter’s column, “Bumps in the Night”, has run on the front page of the Weekly View / Eastside Voice / Eastside Herald newspaper in Irvington on the east side of Indianapolis since 2007. Al’s Pop culture-based articles have been the genesis of several national and local television and radio programs over the years spurring programs on subjects as varied as John Dillinger, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Manson, the ABA Indiana Pacers, and Burger Chef to the mysterious disappearance of ABA star John Brisker and all points in between.
Alan E. Hunter is the author of the books “The Petersen House, the Oldroyd Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died“, “Thursdays with Doc. Dr. Wayne C. Temple’s recollections on Springfield and Lincoln“, “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame“, and has co-authored two books on the Historic Indiana National Road.
Al has researched, scripted, and led the Irvington Ghost Walks since 2002. Al’s tours are roughly 75% history and 25 % ghost stories and folklore. These non-profit tours raise much-needed funds for the Eastside Irvington community. In addition, Al has led similar tours in Greenfield and Cambridge City on the Historic National Road. Al is a former Vice-President and board member of the Indiana National Road Association. Al served as the historian and event coordinator for the Dropping Dimes Foundation which aids the former players of the ABA (American Basketball Association). Al also organized both the 30-year reunion of the ABA held at the Hoosier Dome in 1997 and the 50-year reunion of the ABA festivities at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
Al has co-authored two books on haunted Irvington. In 2013, Al published a compilation of his “Bumps in the Night” articles selected from his column in the Weekly View newspaper. Al also wrote a book on “Haunted Indianapolis” and most recently, a book on the H.H. Holmes relic collection for the benefit of the Irvington Historic Society and the Bona Thompson Memorial Center. The relics detailed in the books were featured in the History Channel 8-part series “American Ripper.” Al and his wife Rhonda appeared in 3 of the segments alongside the Great-great-grandson Jeff Mudgett. Al was featured in the November 21, 2018, episode of Mysteries at the Museum with Don Wildman where he detailed a scalpel used by America’s first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, in Irvington. Al was also featured in the October 9, 2019, episode of Ghost Adventures with Zak Bagans in which he detailed the history of the H.H. Holmes house in Irvington.
Over the decade, Al has led talks and programs in Irvington that have collected food and personal care items for the Irvington homeless shelter, gathering well over a ton of food, clothing, and personal care goods for distribution. A former teacher and baseball coach at Westfield High School, Al graduated from Indiana University and has been married to his wife Rhonda since 1989. They have 2 children, Jasmine and Addison.
View all posts by Alan E. Hunter- Irvington
Alan E. Hunter 