The bullet holes are still there. Ninety years after the most wanted criminals in America shot their way out of a remote Wisconsin lodge, the pockmarks remain in the walls and windows of Little Bohemia, preserved like relics from a different era. Built in 1929 by Emil Wanatka on a forested stretch of US Highway 51 in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, the lodge was meant to be a quiet Northwoods vacation retreat. On the night of April 20, 1934, it became the stage for one of the most catastrophic law enforcement failures in American history -- a botched FBI raid that let John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and every member of their gang walk free, while leaving one federal agent dead and several others wounded.
On the afternoon of April 20, 1934, six men and four women arrived at the secluded Little Bohemia Lodge for a weekend of rest. The men were Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, Homer Van Meter, Tommy Carroll, John Hamilton, and gang associate Pat Reilly, accompanied by Nelson's wife Helen and three girlfriends. The connection to the resort came through Dillinger's attorney, Louis Piquett, who had past dealings with lodge owner Emil Wanatka. Though gang members greeted Wanatka by name, he later claimed he did not realize who they were until Friday night, when a poker game gave it away. As Dillinger raked in a winning pot, Wanatka glimpsed a pistol concealed inside his coat -- and noticed that Nelson and the others wore shoulder holsters too. He was hosting America's most wanted fugitives.
The following day, Wanatka's wife Nan seized her chance while away from the lodge at a children's birthday party with their young son. She told her brother-in-law Henry Voss that the Dillinger gang was at Little Bohemia, then slipped him a note hidden inside a pack of cigarettes urging him to alert authorities. Voss passed the tip to the U.S. Marshal's office, which relayed it to the FBI early on the morning of Sunday, April 22. Special Agent Melvin Purvis assembled a raiding party and headed north. What followed was a masterclass in everything that could go wrong.
When the FBI arrived at Little Bohemia, they focused their approach on the front of the lodge. The back was left completely unguarded. Dillinger, Van Meter, Hamilton, and Carroll escaped immediately through the rear, making their way north on foot through woods and past a lake to commandeer a car and driver at a resort a mile away. Carroll split off, stole a vehicle in Manitowish, and drove uneventfully to St. Paul. Meanwhile, Pat Reilly returned from an errand and backed out under fire with gang girlfriend Pat Cherrington. The entire Dillinger gang had slipped through the FBI's net. Nelson, characteristically, chose a different path: he attacked the raiding party head-on, exchanging fire with Purvis before slipping out the back and fleeing in the opposite direction.
Ninety minutes after escaping into the woods, Baby Face Nelson emerged a mile from Little Bohemia and kidnapped a local couple, ordering them to drive. Dissatisfied with their car's speed, he stopped at the home of switchboard operator Alvin Koerner, taking more hostages. When a car arrived carrying federal agents W. Carter Baum and Jay Newman and local constable Carl Christensen, Nelson asked who they were. They identified themselves as law enforcement. Nelson opened fire with a custom-converted machine gun pistol. He wounded Christensen nine times, struck Newman with a gunshot to the head, and killed Agent Baum with three shots to the neck. Baum's safety catch, investigators later discovered, had been on. Nelson stole the FBI car, drove 15 miles before a flat tire stranded him, then disappeared into the forest, hiding with a Chippewa family for several days before escaping for good.
The toll was devastating: one federal agent dead, a constable and another agent severely wounded, two civilians harmed, and every gang member gone. The only people captured were three women who had accompanied the gang, including Nelson's wife Helen Gillis. Combined with the earlier arrest of Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette in a previous botched raid, the pattern inspired a mordant joke: "The bureau may not always get its man, but it always gets his woman." The debacle prompted calls for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's resignation and petitions demanding Purvis's suspension. Today Little Bohemia remains operational as a restaurant, its walls still bearing the original bullet holes, its display cases filled with memorabilia from the gun battle. In 2008, scenes from Michael Mann's film Public Enemies were shot on location here, though the movie drastically altered the events -- showing Nelson and Van Meter killed near the lodge when, in reality, both died months later in separate confrontations far from the Wisconsin Northwoods.
Located at 46.12°N, 89.86°W in Vilas County, Wisconsin, along US Highway 51 in the Manitowish Waters area. The lodge sits in dense Northwoods forest along the southern shore of Little Star Lake. From altitude, the area is a patchwork of lakes, rivers, and unbroken forest. Nearest airports include Lakeland Airport/Noble F. Lee Memorial Field (KARV) in Arbor Vitae, roughly 15 miles to the east, and Rhinelander-Oneida County Airport (KRHI) about 40 miles south. The escape routes of the Dillinger gang -- north through the woods, south to Manitowish -- are traceable through the forest and lake terrain visible from above.