1934 Spider Lake Raid on the John Dillinger Gang

1934 Spider Lake Raid on the John Dillinger Gang. . , Organized criminal activity swept through American cities in the 1920s and 1930s. The sparsely populated areas of northern Wisconsin were a preferred hiding place for gangsters, and the presence of criminal groups in the area led to unfortunate losses of life among both civilians and law enforcement., The Dillinger Gang, led by John Dillinger, was an infamous group of bank robbers that terrorized the Midwest. The gang chose Spider Lake (now Manitowish Waters) as a place to regroup in April of 1934. On the morning of April 22, the Chicago Field Office of the Division of Investigation (DOI), the precursor to today’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), learned that suspicious guests, possibly Dillinger and affiliated gang members, were staying at Emil Wanatka’s Little Bohemia Lodge, a local resort., Federal agents from Chicago and St. Paul arriving at the lodge encountered innocent local residents trying to leave the area. Tragically, after the locals did not heed commands to stop their car, agents mistakenly shot and killed Eugene Boisoneau and wounded John Morris and John Hoffman, all civilians. Alerted by the gunfire, the gang began firing from the second floor. Dillinger and others, under the cover of machine-gun fire, escaped out the back of the lodge. Later that evening, special agents W. Carter Baum and Jay Newman, accompanied by Spider Lake constable Carl Christensen, responded to a call from the nearby Koerner’s Resort, about two miles from Little Bohemia Lodge. There they found Lester Gillis, a.k.a. Baby Face Nelson, who was a member of the Dillinger Gang, in a stolen vehicle. Gillis opened fire, killing Special Agent Baum and wounding Special Agent Newman and Constable Christensen, and then escaped. On July 22, 1934, Dillinger was killed in Chicago, IL. On November 27, 1934, Gillis was fatally wounded in a shootout with special agents in Barrington, IL. During this encounter, Special Agents Samuel Cowley and Herman Hollis were also killed.