One Evansville intersection has seen its share of historic criminals

EVANSVILLE — Nerves on edge, girded for a fight with a fearsome crime figure, local law enforcement became convinced that Public Enemy Number One was headed for Evansville — maybe holing up here, maybe just passing through. It didn't matter.

It was the mid-1930s, and John Dillinger's name was on everyone's lips.

Vanderburgh County historian Stan Schmitt remembers that in those days, the rural bank robbers then rampaging across the Midwest often had law enforcement officers outgunned. So the roadblock that cops erected for Dillinger near U.S. 41 and Indiana 57 had to be the biggest response authorities could muster.

"They called everybody out," Schmitt said. "All of those guys (criminals), it was with Thompson machine guns, submachine guns or BAR rifles — they outgunned all these little town police people, the pistols and the shotgun kind of thing.

"Anyone could buy a Thompson submachine gun then."

More: The days Public Enemy Number One came to Evansville

As it happened, Dillinger didn't come to Evansville — but in places where local hoods congregated, his name had a certain magic.

Kelley Coures, an Evansville historian, has heard the stories passed down from his maternal grandfather, Kelley Hoskinson, who was a manager for club owner Clarence Wood. Wood owned gambling establishments Club Trocadero and The Dells, as Coures recalls.

The Commando, another local establishment, was a particularly rough place. All three were settings for big, splashy, gambling-related crimes, some that made headlines in Evansville newspapers. There were shootings at The Dells, Coures said.

The local crooks would have regarded the charismatic Dillinger as a hero of sorts — "or a figure to be envious of," the local historian said. Hoskinson would have known all about that.

"Working for Clarence Wood, he was kind of ‘in the know’ about stuff like that," Coures said.

National organized crime syndicates never gained a foothold in Evansville because Clarence Wood and others like him kept "a tight lid" on gambling with help from the local political structure, Coures said.

But Dillinger was an Indiana bank robber famous for his audacious escape from the jail in Crown Point and tales of his good manners during the commission of his crimes. He was different.

Schmitt doesn't know just how long lawmen waited for Dillinger when they set up for him at 41 and 57 — but the area would find infamy again some 90 years later.

It was at 57 and 41 that Alabama fugitives Casey and Vicky White made their crucial mistake before U.S. marshals task force members and local law enforcement grounded them in 2022.

Casey White was serving a 75-year prison sentence for a 2015 violent crime spree when he came to the Lauderdale County, Alabama jail in February 2022 to await trial on an unrelated capital murder charge. Assistant Jail Director Vicky White walked him out of the county lockup, and the pair went on the run. They were holed up in Motel 41 in Evansville when authorities ended their freedom after a brief car chase on May 9, 2022.

Casey White's decision to yank the fugitives' Cadillac into a grassy area outside Anchor Industries has been chronicled in YouTube videos and national news accounts — but locals with knowledge of the topography understood immediately why the pair had doomed themselves.

The marshals and other officers chasing White said traffic at the light at 41 and 57, just beyond Anchor, was too congested for him to keep running. Embankments along the edge of 57 made it impossible for him to cut through the trees on Anchor's property and onto the highway.

More: Part 5: 'I’m looking straight into his eyes': Desperate chase with Whites ends face-to-face

With nowhere else to go, White sped right past the company's main office with cars in hot pursuit. The desperate journey around the north and east sides of the plant took him into a fenced-in back lot, through a gate and into an employee parking lot on the south side of the building.

Driving a marked sheriff's patrol car, Deputy Jared Zwilling made his move in the parking lot. As White made a left turn at relatively low speed, Zwilling struck the Cadillac's left rear fender with his front fender. It didn't work.

The grassy field immediately south must have beckoned White with the promise of open space and escape — but upon entering he realized that deep ditches along two sides prevented him from exiting. He could see U.S. 41 from the field, but a small lake backed by a ditch and fencing blocked his path back onto the highway. It forced him to pull a U-turn and drive parallel along a ditch on Burch Drive.

There was no way out. The pursuing officers rammed the fugitives' Cadillac into the ditch. It was the end of the line for the Whites. Casey White was captured, and Vicky White fatally shot herself.

And it all happened in Evansville — near U.S. 41 and Indiana 57.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Was John Dillinger in Evansville?