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South Bend theater damaged in 1934 Dillinger shootout sold
SOUTH BEND (AP) -- A downtown South Bend theater that bears bullet holes from a shootout that followed John Dillinger's last bank robbery in 1934 has been sold.
Banko Capital, an investment and management company, recently completed the purchase of the State Theatre. Purchase price was not disclosed.
The company plans to rehabilitate the building and reopen it to the public. Banko Capital officials said the company still must determine the best use for the building.
The State Theatre opened in 1921 as the Blackstone Vaudeville House.
In Dillinger's last known robbery, his gang made off with $29,890 from Merchants National Bank of South Bend on June 30, 1934. The shootout that followed damaged the theater building.
Less than a month later, on July 22, 1934, Dillinger was famously gunned down by FBI agents in an alley adjacent to The Biograph Theater in Chicago.
The Hoosier bank robber's largest heist was orchestrated in Greencastle when he robbed the former Central National Bank on Oct. 23, 1933.
Dillinger and his gang reportedly made off with nearly $75,000 in cash and negotiable bonds from Central Bank on the southwest corner of the courthouse square.
Accompanying the 31-year-old Dillinger that day in Greencastle were gang members Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley and Harry Copeland (although eye witnesses identified Michigan City prison escapee Joseph Burns as the fourth man instead of Copeland).