my name is sarah hampton and i am the director of the way for lake area historical society this is the first time we've offered a program officially on the gangsters who are in our area mainly because as a trained historian it's one of those things that sort of troubles me a gangster is by the nature of who they were and what they did didn't leave a lot of records didn't leave a lot of information and then leave a lot of photos so this is a little bit different than some of the programs you may have seen us do in the past where we have eighty pictures or one hundred pictures of that sort of thing to show there are a number of photos you'll notice that a lot of them are many of them are current day this is what this is where they were but this is what it looks like now or their mug shots because that's about the only time they stopped and posed for the camera most of what we know about the gangsters in this area actually comes from oral history which is wonderful and is an incredible resource but as you all know if you've heard someone tell a story more than once they tend to change a little bit as the years go on so as often as i can throughout the program i will point out when we're finding out things from oral history or give you the source that we pulled information from so go ahead and get started this partnership program between the library in the upper lake area historical society is actually part of a project that's funded in part with money from the vote of the people of minnesota on november fourth two thousand and eight which dedicated funding to preserve minnesota's art and cultural heritage so you hear a lot about the different legacy programs around the state and this is actually one of those things that stem from that one of the fun things if you go online these days the f b i has actually made available in many many of the actual reports there through the freedom of information act if you google the different gangsters names or different incidents you can actually find the the scanned reports of the scanned files from the f b i of course many of them have been cleansed but those of course are very biased as you can imagine and i don't go into great detail but as we go through you hear comments about some of the gangsters and the things that they were doing or they were accused of doing and more often than not they were counterparts on those same incidents and there were accusations that j edgar hoover who of course was the director of the bureau of investigation because it wasn't until  thirty five which is after most of what we talk about tonight took place that it became the federal bureau of investigation or the f b i the janitor hoover had a wonderful knack for spinning stories and created using utilizing the media to go after these folks will talk a little bit about what was going on in the twenty's and thirty's in the midwest as well as across all across the nation because of course there was a crime wave like none other that had been seen before nineteen twenty six there were twelve thousand murders each year in across america so this was an unbelievable time period in our history most scholars would agree that if it wasn't because the gangster era wasn't caused by prohibition it certainly was escalated by prohibition and there's not a doubt about that and as we look at the time frame as we go prohibition wasn't was approved or was put into place in one thousand twenty it was actually the vote was actually taken in nineteen but it took effect in one nine hundred twenty and it went into nine hundred thirty three so for those thirteen years it runs right along right parallel with the gangster that's what gave them their power so it was known as the noble experiment it's interesting because during prohibition the prohibition itself the prohibition laws had several issues including the fact that of course the probation was passed but it wasn't necessarily enforced it was difficult it was very difficult that the law specifically didn't address the consumption of alcohol so if you had it you could drink it during prohibition you just couldn't buy it sell it trade it distill it create it and they gave you a whole year during that year people had the opportunity to go out and stock up on as much alcohol as they possibly could the breweries love that during nineteen nineteen unfortunately after thirteen years of consuming what they had purchase things ran out so there was definitely a market for the gangsters the only legal way to get alcohol during prohibition was with a doctor's prescription a medical prescription and the prescription you see here is actually kind of fun  this is another example john i think i saw you come in somewhere there ok i am an embarrassment for a moment just because we appreciate the contributions this prescription is for john so it is for your grandfather john  scanned it me mailed it to me and said hey dad would you be interested in this kind of thing we love and that literally makes our day at the depot so just so you know if you have anything like that stuff the way in the family bible or who knows where at home we're always interested  only does is it a prescription for alcohol it's actually they list the kind of liquor whiskey i believe it's one quart although as many doctors can't necessarily read the handwriting and i can't quite make out the directions something about three after meals as it quite make it out i'm not sure what the ailment was do you have any idea what the story is behind it is why he was i don't know but i think that they're both just who was the medical doctor who wrote the prescription probably had a lot of friends i mean was willing to write this so anyway it's always kind of fun to see and i am always thrilled  to be able to tell as we come across them when we get actually able to incorporate a local piece into just because we know a lot about we have a fairly good idea which gangsters were here and we'll talk about those but when they were here they weren't necessarily here to commit crimes they were here to relax and that's kind of the nature of just like everybody else came out to the lake so prohibition in general was a popular issue around here this is so of difficult to make out what exactly you're seeing but this is actually a tunnel in a speakeasy in a home and elwood the house you walk in the door the entry way and there's the main door into the house and there's a curved entry area all around you there's a door cut into the curve and there's a buzzer and a wonderful stairway that goes down the house was built i believe in one nine hundred twenty so right at the beginning of prohibition there are stories of amazing parties in the speakeasy or this basement and my favorite is that well i'm sure that these bottles don't date back to the twenty's the owner has chosen to toss the bottles in there and keep them in there this is actually a cabinet door in one of the bathrooms off the speakeasies main room and it leads into a tunnel that's now been closed off but was supposed to have gone a good half mile out into the country so they could escape should the authorities show up so it's kind of fun to see that that's been kept in captured kind of neat dell it was not the only place that had speaking speakeasies by any means  you may recognize this house from warner road and it has been known over the years as the silver slipper it's also been known as the king's horses it was definitely had a reputation has had a reputation as a popular very popular speakeasy downstairs it was suggested that a gentleman named putnam was kidnapped in st paul and held briefly at the silver slipper that's one of those things that's just kind of a whispered sort of thing i have no idea if that's true but it's kind of a fun although i think that every house that has a speakeasy claims they had someone held in the basement at some point during the era when this house was known as the king's horses the site was actually owned by a man named alex connelly who lived in the house and had his speakeasy or his business right there in the building and the bar had a reputation as a hangout for a shady characters from st paul and chicago i love of the the different terminology the different descriptions of these folks many stories around lot of media in particular very about the secret knocks or the code words that you'd need to get into the different speakeasies some of the neighbors participated in the speakeas some were really disgusted when they saw the dancing girls come out the back door just kind of depends on what was going on this one was particularly well known for its card playing and so in a lot of times it wasn't even necessarily the alcohol that drew people was in the basement of the house was still there and we've had some contact with the owner which would be interesting to piece back and see if that's still there now i don't know that it is but it is a private residence so another building along mana mean i ave what's known as the knights tavern and then later as the second base tavern but it's been suggested that the t v room called polly's kettle which was maintained on the first floor during prohibition during the prohibition years was really a speakeasy if you knew the code words don't know if that's true or not but you know the juniper street salon i think is what it says now it was originally the site of going eris the getty shack it was known for having some of the best  telly and food in the area got their menu there which is kind of cute and from what we've been told that dylan ger was a frequent customer now i question the term frequent because i don't know that he was out here all that often but he apparently he liked what they had to offer and from what we've heard babyface nelson was also one who was probably there a little bit more and keeping up with them out i mean i think this is kind of a fun one well the floods not so great but this and this area right over here is used to be the shore club is now gordie's it had sort of a cutoff entrance and there was a filling station or a service station entrance there they had big plate glass windows and at one point those windows were shot out and of course it was blamed on the gangsters we have no idea which ones or if it was really the gangsters or some kids or who knows what but pretty much anything that went wrong in the late twenty's and early thirty's around here was gangsters they had a apone i hear quite often that capone was here and unfortunately i don't think he was here he may have been and we could find out somewhere along the way but he had a real penchant for wisconsin they had a couple of resorts in wisconsin that he really really liked and i don't think he came all the way out here but and for another reason we'll talk about just a little bit but he certainly took advantage of prohibition and all the business opportunities that that offered if you read any of the quotes from him at the beginning he was very deter that he was just a man filled fulfilling a demand which is kind of entertaining but capone is known as probably or is probably the best known gangster in america  he was actually born in new york and moved to chicago as a young adult so he kind of cut his teeth on the mob and mafia in new york and then came out chicago to try to find a new space to call his own he quickly became the leader of one of the syndicates in the midwest which were known as the chicago outfit or aka the capones in addition to bootlegging his enterprises included prostitution and gambling and after a particularly close attempt on his life captured at least got the car from at that point they turned it into the government and it was actually used as president franklin delano roosevelt's limousine it was it was that secure they took it over and decided to use it he had capone had better stuff than the president so this is a slightly later mug shot when he was at alcatraz and you can see he was losing weight not quite as healthy looking as he had been initial in his in his fat years if you will are happy years capone was actually indicted as you probably know for tax evasion that's what they got him on that's what they believe they could make stick they knew all or lots of the other things he was doing but tax evasion was what they could get him for and that was in one nine hundred thirty one so he was taken out fairly early it was in  thirty four that he was sent to alcatraz off the coast of california and that's really when his control of anything ended and when he was in prison more in the midwest he was actually able to kind of keep things going a little bit when they sent him o alcatraz his communication was cut off and he was pretty much done interestingly enough it doesn't always get publicized as well but between the inability of his inability to communicate and the repeal of prohibition h power disappeared but at that same time period his mental capacity was diminishing he actually had neuro syphilis and he was he was becoming less and less capable of functioning really by the time right before he died he had an evaluation and they determined that he had the mental capacity of a twelve year old at that point so it's kind of interesting he also mentally died of cardiac arrest in the end but so now well component of self wasn't particularly in our area we know that others like his main rival bugs moran was now and i have to say i think he looks like kind of a nice guy and clearly not a good judge of character he looks like somebody fun to hang out with you know a restaurant host or something but he moran bugs as i call him was actually born in st paul and ended up in chicago now i think that he sort of he was the one who vacations here a lot he brought a lot of his cohorts out this way and i think that's part of why capone kept wisconsin and i think they sort of had their own little territory they were definitely the two main rivals in gangland  chicago like i said moran was born here he was raised here and then he moved to chicago when he was nineteen it didn't take him long to figure out what was going on out there by the time he turned twenty he had been arrested three times so he was he was quick he was actually nicknamed bugs because in gangster slang bugs means completely crazy so again not such a good judge of character but he was well known for his fierce temper his love of pranks and his catholic morals which repeatedly they talk about that it's like are you kidding we got his nickname was one of the stories says that he got his nickname because he went out to pick up a suit that he had a tailor custom made for him and he was so enraged by the price when he was given the price that he broke the tailor's arms and legs both arms and both legs and left with the suit and they decided then that he was crazy there are a lot of other stories that would have made me kind of refused to run by brothels or visit prostitutes like own did that was the decider dividing factor between the two of them on the flipside miranda is credited again bad judge of character is credited with popularizing the practice of driving past the homer establishment of an enemy and peppering it with gunfire drive by shootings although is a really effective way to kill or hinder your opponent so that was he was one of the first to really use that heavily  i love the sneer so it was entertaining but the next biggest felon and probably more famous than moran in a nationwide aspect would be  probably sides capone and definitely for the minnesota and of things the most publicized gangster in our midst interestingly enough i went into this thinking oh you know there's going be a ton of stuff about tracks and didn't get out there and whatever and then discovered that dylan or spent the majority of us twenty's in prison and only lived to be thirty one so when you do  doesn't it doesn't give you a lot of time so like i said he was a very busy man when he was out and about he was born and raised in indiana and he had a very challenging childhood that a lot of people think led him to the life that he chose his mother died when he was very young and his father had some issues and wasn't the best role model for him so interestingly he apparently told people in later years that you know he was all of thirty that he had which was he was paroled in may of one nine hundred thirty three and it was really in the fall of one nine hundred thirty three that things picked up and that's when he sort of took over the midwest and it was july of thirty four when he was killed so it was really nine or ten months that the all of his popularity took place if you will or his reign of terror during that year or little bit less than a year he had a gang that consisted of very notorious gangster names like homer van meter babyface nelson eddie greene and tommy carroll among others and they really focused on robbing banks dylan juror had a problem with kidnapping he didn't agree with kidnapping he thought that that was a silly way to make money that was wrong and he's often been described as a robin modern day robin hood he would rob the banks of their money but should customers be in there with their twenty dollars or hundred dollars or whatever he didn't want their money he wanted the bank money that was insured or that well that would eventually be insured but he didn't want the individuals money so it's kind of interesting there are stories that village are purchased groceries in la to meet i and was known to pay as bill timely  and in a prompt manner even though it was during the depression he's also said to have played poker at the home of a lady in bald eagle and she always referred to him as the absolute gentleman so it's kind of interesting he was he was certainly a character you know and again basically they were coming out here from chicago or from st paul to relax they weren't necessarily here to run around or rob banks and they would leave this area typically and by leaving this area i mean they'd go to west same color or kansas that depended on what they were trying to do but they were they weren't necessarily robbing the white bear bank which is a good thing i guess  e well that while all of that is true this is actually often where they came up with the idea for their next big hit when they would relax enough they'd come up with the next plan and we know pretty solidly that this is where they plan kidnapping of william ham william ham was part of the ham brewing family certainly had a it was well worth it was worth a fair amount of money from a ransom standpoint and the group decided th would get out here and get close to him the barker copus king actually coordinated the ham kidnapping and they tried to get dylan ger in on a subsequent kidnapping and he actually told them no he doesn't think that's good people don't like it when you  then purpose will talk about a little bit said well who cares what people think and villages that i do i have to live around them they're going to turn me in so he wasn't stupid from that standpoint so it's kind of a interesting one of the reasons they came out of this area is that even though they were wanted even though they were fairly well known and his posters were all over the place as you can imagine they appeared in the newspapers they appeared in the post office as you would guess they were all over the place and people knew who they were but they came out here first and foremost because there was something called the o'connor system in st paul and it was police chief o'connor john j o'connor who actually was out of the office as police chief by the time the gangsters were really moving and shaking around here but he had set in place such a system that as long as they didn't commit a crime within the community of st paul or within the close city limits they would be ok they would be welcome and they would be allowed to stay if they were just coming to relax and spend their money he was ok with that as you can imagine the mayors and residents it within the communities of minneapolis west st paul south st paul and all the other surrounding areas where they would go and rob the banks and kidnap the people  were just thrilled with that arrangement so unfortunately after a while it didn't last but it was in place long enough most of the neighbors were willing to look the other way were willing to not turn them in willing to think about it partly because it was the depression toward the at least the end of their run most of the gangsters were in this area between one hundred thirty and thirty three so financially things weren't great and they would often pay three or four times the going rate to rent a cottage and if you had that cash in hand you know it they just they just did they didn't worry about it too much until the feds came knocking at their door a few days after the gangsters had taken off the new tenants had moved out and they wanted to inquire about the generous or the kind or my personal favorite the pale neighbors because the gangsters were no and to never go out of the house in the sun  if they were pale and sickly looking they knew they were gangsters they with hindsight of course the neighbors knew what was going on and they probably knew during as it were they probably suspected well it was happening but they decided to go there whatever the case may be the stories are common the stories are many and the theme is consistent that the gangsters may have been robbers kidnappers and murderers but they made good neighbors they did their bills on time and they were relatively quiet so it's kind of fun one of the big names who came out this way baby face nelson for obvious reasons he was actually born lester am gillis so he was not thrilled with the baby face name but you know lester wasn't necessarily appropriate and he doesn't look like a lester to me but he was certainly known for that youthful appearance and his small stature he actually stood five feet four inches tall and weighed about one hundred thirty five pounds his first arrest happened when he was just fourteen years old for auto theft and i can't imagine that he could reach the pedals but then he had a long history of arrests there after hundred thirty one he was sentenced to a prison term of one year to life and again doing the research on this they would go in and rob a bank of a hundred thousand dollars and get two months in prison and be paroled they would steal a car and get one year to life that doesn't make any sense to me but a lot of it i think depended on the judges that they got in what was going on and who they could buy off but anyway after he was serving his time at the illinois state penitentiary in joliet and after that first year in prison he was taken to a court appearance and he was being returned to the state pen when he managed to escape he fled to california where his wife helen joined him and they stayed there for more than a year before they came back to the midwest and settled in indiana where they met homer van meter and began a connection to the deal and you're going in april of one hundred thirty four nelson and his wife helen and their buddy left his wife behind such a nice guy he ended up actually shooting three special agents with the bureau of investigation at that time and while he was trying to escape and was holding hostages his who was actually captured during the raid was paroled after a month and met up with babyface again interestingly enough when babyface stopped at spinks store at the post office which was located in spink told people later that he came in to get his mail and babyface came in to get his mail under an alias of course cracks me up but they were receiving mail and things in these communities but mr spence mistook him for a gentleman tutor for a well to do family out in the community so it's kind of interesting he was so well dressed and so you know promoter presented himself so well he thought he was a tutor nelson was actually killed during a shoot out in november end of prohibition here we see pretty boy floyd and i think it's the little hair twist to get out of his nickname i'm not positive but he's got it in every single picture that i've seen  it was reported and this is one of those that's extremely controversial in the gangster world that floyd was part of the team that attempted to free nash when he was being transported through union station in kansas city missouri and this whole incident became known as the kansas city massacre  floyd argued that he was not there during that whole gun fight the two kansas city police officers in oklahoma police chief and a bureau of investigation special agent were killed as was frank nash the criminal that they were trying to free so it was completely a whole bungled mess but he's the one who was killed during the kansas city massacre floyd who was along with another gangster name and a machete were alleged to have been  burned miller's accomplices in the attempt to free nash but it was never proven and it actually goes against a lot of the evidence it's one of those stories that is now believed in hindsight that hoover j edgar hoover actually sort of put out there and tried to pin on floyd in particular to make him more despicable make him more unappealing and hopefully have the public general public come out and try to out him if you will interestingly enough it's been contended that this crime would have been inconsistent with floyd pretty boy floyd and his other criminal acts as he was not otherwise known as a hired gun or a hired killer he didn't want anything to do with that shortly after the attack the kansas city police department received a postcard dated june thirtieth one thousand thirty three from postmark from springfield missouri which read dear sirs i charles floyd wanted made known that i did not participate in the massacre of officers a kansas city i agents who had fatally wounded him or to the bureau of investigation agents who fatally wounded him and actually in the end now that we have actual ballistics and science that can go back and study some of these things one study of the by the bureau of investigations agent melvin purvis who became j edgar hoover's basically in the process national are looking at the one who was murdered or who was there trying to rescue in the kansas city massacre has been called the most successful bank robber in u s history interestingly enough unfortunately i don't know how they define success considering he was shot and didn't get to enjoy it but his criminal record reached back to nine hundred thirteen when he was actually sentenced to life in the state pen for murder he was later pardoned in one nine hundred twenty he was given a twenty five year sentence at the same penitentiary for burglary with explosives and later pardoned on march third one nine hundred twenty four nash began a twenty five year sentence at leavenworth for assaulting a male custodian and he escaped in october of one nine hundred thirty he had been the feds have been tipped off as to his whereabouts and they had gone out and captured him which was why they were transporting him in kansas city when he was killed but it was believed there are reports that during that time while he was on the run after his escape that he had come through he was in white there for a little while no details on that but he was supposed to have been serious so it's kind of interesting this is one of my favorites i think he's one of the better looking in the bunch and certainly doesn't have quite as silly of a name but this is george machine gun kelly was probably not leavenworth and in order to thank him they invited him to take part in the robbery of a bank in willmar minnesota interesting way to do it it turned out not to be such a good thing but  included among the bank robbers were other were other gangsters namely harvey bailey vern miller sammy silberman the band the bandits escaped with an estimated seventy thousand dollars but it was not a clean robbery the head of minnesota's bureau of criminal activity at that time claimed that he couldn't remember a holdup in the history of the state since the raids of the younger brothers and jesse james gangs which compares to the one at willmar for daring and cold blooded disregard of human life and as a follow up about a month later one of the most common gangster stories from our area talks about three gangsters who were killed in a road near wildwood amusement park it's probably the most common nefarious gangster of agents from the b c a the bureau of criminal apprehension searching for clues to the robbery and wilmer minnesota pulled up to examine three fresh bodies found near wildwood amusement park the agents immediately identified one body as that of bank robber sammy silverman a former taxi driver in minneapolis known as the ten dollar kid the f b i heard from informants that silverman had gotten away from a kansas city robbery which had followed the winner with all of the money it was supposed to have been slain by members of the bugs gang killed with silverman who was shot in the head and neck where kansas city hoods mike rustic and frank coleman the assailant the assailants left the three bloody bodies hanging from willow trees by a lover's lane in wildwood park  killer who committed the triple slaying near wildwood park according to keller kelly miller had robbed the wilmer bank with silverman and some other gangsters and silverman apparently tried to double cross miller just a few weeks later when they did the other bank robbery in kansas  they ran across the cross paths near wildwood and vern miller killed both silverman and the friends he was with who apparently had nothing to do with this so it's a really awkward story of you know be careful who you keep company  with by the time of this confession or this statement was being made by machine gun kelly miller was already dead so he couldn't confirm or deny what was going on it was kind of interesting but according to the newspaper the wire press during this time period it's kind of interesting because there's a little different take on how things played out there was a superintendent of the state bureau of criminal identification and apprehension was driving along a lonely road just southeast of wildwood park near katherine abbott park today so if you're familiar with catherine abbott over and monomania he found a car ditched off to the side of the road and he soon discovered a man who had been shot dead near the car a short distance from that he discovered someone else who had three identified as frank coleman and few hours later a third body was found and i'm not quite sure why it took them so long if he was hidden in the woods or what was going on but a third body was actually found at the scene and there's no discussion whatsoever in any of these newspaper reports about the bodies hanging from willow trees so i don't know where that romantic sort of thing came from but it's kind of interesting they do identify them all as the three who had been killed  there was some discussion in the wiper press who of course the writers for the ever press at that time knew all about what was going on the gangsters apparently or seem to think so in their writing but they had a theory that the these three were actually hijacking liquor shipments from chicago to st paul and suddenly now these liquor shipments were flowing freely again and liquor was coming in which is very interesting considering we're still dealing with prohibition this is only one hundred thirty are also stories of a couple of children who lived in the will or any area who were on their front porch and heard the gunshots and then found out later that day and people actually recognized those who had been killed  as three men who had been playing miniature golf at wildwood park earlier i talked about a script a little while ago about police chief o'connor and this is unfortunately not a very good photo of him but a photo of the man who is often credited for sort of inviting the gangsters as  in and that's a huge part of what the entertainment for the gangsters would have been at that time they wanted to come out and have people come out and go dancing and join the music and that sort of thing of course them sure they enjoyed the miniature golf and the steamers and  the streetcar was a convenient way to get out here for the average public but of course the gangsters had you to fill cars and that they traded out fairly often and moved on but just outside the doors of wildwood media was the piccadilly and today we all know a different building that was that was the piccadilly it's no longer the piccadilly either but this is the original location of the piccadilly just down the street from what we know of more recently as the  there's not a lot of stories about it being a speakeasy there's been some question some people have suggested that it was actually a brothel i don't know about that but who knows there been some interesting things found inside the walls when they remodeled the building and the second floor in particular but the main level was the restaurant and it was named the piccadilly it was actually beulah johnson who started it in one thousand nine hundred eighteen and it was it just went by beulah johnson's place or whatever they wanted to call it but they serve something called the piccadilly sandwich which became very popular and so it became known as the piccadilly it wasn't until one nine hundred fifty two that they moved over to the location that just closed a few years ago so and then expanded from there but but the piccadilly was a big draw but the absolute biggest draw for the gangsters was the plantation nightclub the all of the folks that we've talked about frank nash bugs moran  babyface nelson and all the gang have been claimed to have hung out at the plantation the plantation was located where lyons park is today and it looks sort of like this now much more peaceful before it was one hundred twenty five when it was turned in the boat were the original but worse for the building that was there was turned into a dance hall and then they tore that building down very quickly and built what you see what you saw here much bigger than would have been there prior to that it was operated by a man named ben harris for a few years and that i can document because big ben harris had to go before the white bear town board and request apply for a dancehall permit so in thirty one of thirty two he did by thirty three it was actually being done under someone else's name and at the end of the season and thirty three there was a newspaper report that ben claimed that he had to shut down the plantation and again remember prohibition has been repealed things just aren't as profitable as they used to be and most of the gangsters are they getting captured or killed at this point harris had to shut down the plantation because he just couldn't make enough money the finances just weren't there interestingly enough in hundred thirty four the following year he pled guilty for running a roulette wheel and was was indicted for that but the burger carcass gang was originally made up of mom barker and her four sons some some accounts refer to the mas having seven children only four became gangsters anyway so they're the only ones who sort of curiosity not sure if the others died young or what happened but so far as the gang goes their originally four sons the one you see here is arthur who is also known as doc barker he was actually the third son  around the midwest so within a year lost all four of her sons either to prison or suicide which was not a good obviously a happy situation for her at the same time her husband then chose to walk out and left him some remove himself from the scene and walked away from the whole thing lloyd the second son was released from prison in one thousand thirty eight so after a lot of the action had taken place and he was working as a u s army cook in a p o w camp when his wife murdered him so none of them had great situations going on doc barker was involved in a series of bank robbers robberies and auto theft that led to his arrest on several occasions  he was typically arrested and then released after a few months he didn't stay in prison for very long until the authorities caught up with him in january of one nine hundred thirty five and he was convicted of the bremmer kidnapping which came shortly after the ham kidnapping which we'll talk about in a few minutes  he was actually convicted and imprisoned he was ultimately sent to alcatraz and he along with two other inmates tried to escape from alcatraz in one thousand thirty nine and he was shot and killed during that escape attempt fred barker who seem to be for lack of a better term the baby of the family he seemed to be kind of mom's companion and as i was reported to have been with  her he followed along with a lot of his brother's schemes for a lot of dark schemes i think more than anything and he and ma died together at the hands of federal agents in the house and down in florida they had found a map in pocket when he was arrested that led them to the house where manfredi were i wouldn't be real happy with my brother at that point but so they planned an ambush or a raid they surrounded the home and ordered the barkers to surrender but fred decided to come out shooting and they were immediately killed ma barker probably has the strongest reputation that is fictionalized i  think generally the opinion after the fact is that it was glorified that she was really the leader of the gang one of the things that j edgar hoover really put out there was that she was the mastermind and it was often known as the called they were of barker and her boys in reality she was really more of a cover than anything else it was a lot easier to come in and rent a cottage as a mother and a couple of sons that was to come in with a handful of men trying to rent something from somebody  people felt much more you know willing to let her in as you can imagine but in prison interviews many years later elven creepy carcass who is the carcass part of the barker corpus would say that mom was always somebody in our lives love didn't enter into it really she was somebody we looked after and took with us when we moved city to city to hide out it's no insult to ma's memory that she just didn't have the know how to direct us on around it would not have occurred to her to get involved in our business and we always made it a point of only discussing our scores when mom wasn't around with leave her at home when we were arranging a job or we'd send her to a movie ma saw a lot of movies i'm curious if she ever showed up at the avalon theater or any of the ones around here but so far we haven't found any ticket stubs cell in one hundred thirty two elven corpus doc barker and bob barker rented a cottage in modern me and were said to frequent the local restaurants residents found them to be quiet well mannered and bill paying important things for neighbors when the f b i began making in court inquiries the gang made a quiet departure  other well known gangsters as we mentioned around the area would have been at that time would have been baby face nelson bugs moran and the gang purpose of an creepy carcass yeah you can see why you got the  nickname he really had an off putting sinister smile and there are a series of photos where he is just kind of creepy he typically works with the barker gang and referred to he like to refer to them not as the barker compass king but as the corpus barker gang he's often thought to have been the mastermind of the group he actually is credited as having a photographic memory and as being the smart gangster and i'll give him credit because he was named he was the fourth man named as  public enemy number one they went through they captured or they killed the other three the first three and carcass was only one of survived at labeling so he actually lived long enough to be paroled in and lived out his life in spain he left america he left united states when he was paroled and moved to spain where he was sadly described as an old man who loved his drink and often tried to convince anyone who would listen that he had once been a tough guy the sad and all that but his career began very early again very young by the age of ten he was associating with bootleggers pimps and bank robbers it was while he was serving time in the kansas state penitentiary in lansing kansas kansas that he met fred barker who was also in the pen for bank robbery when corpus was released in one thousand thirty one he joined up with the barker gang the carcass of the corpus barker gang as he'd like us to  say became one of the most for bit of both criminal gangs of the one nine hundred thirty s they didn't hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way even innocent bystanders the group was then led typically by alvin from what we've picked up i also was led was kind of a partnership with doc and fred barker and included about twenty five people all together twenty five members through the years that kind of came and went they weren't all together at the same time but not long after manfredi were killed in january one thousand thirty five purpose almost met his own and when the f b i at the time the newly formed f b i located him in atlantic city new jersey he continued to make it around for a little bit longer before he was captured what you see here is a curren photo of a place called idlewild cottage on bald eagle lake it's at the corner of bald eagle and taylor and this is one of the places that we know they stayed at the barker corpus gang state and it's kind of on this is what it looks like today  as i've said generally their time here is pretty quiet with one big exception this is where they actually planned the ham kidnapping and that's pretty well documented in interviews of course because carcass was arrested alive was captured alive he could talk and it was kind of fun because they could interview him and he was fairly proud of what they did so he talked a lot so you could get it so you got to take it with a grain of salt but at least we can get some information he talked about how they arranged the rental of the cottage out of bald eagle because they wanted to be able to be within the vicinity of st paul but not right in st paul so they could case the ham family in the ham house and figure out what was going on it was from this location as i said that they really went back and forth and corpus is quoted as saying i like this we got to know so much about the guy that i was sick of him long before the kidnapping tired of watching  so within the neighborhood the gangsters use the cover that they were they were employees of the plantation or entertainers at the plantation nightclub so again the plantation comes into play this covered the fact that they were often up late into the night and slept throughout the day that whole you know pale and past kind of thing and on again people the one thing the neighbors often raise their eyebrows on was that they nobody went out on the lake they didn't enjoy the boats they didn't enjoy the fishing they didn't do any of that but one of the fun facts that was included in the f b i report from interviews after they thirty three so they could purchase alcohol a pretty spirited way they did five or six cases of beer at a time and also a considerable amount of ginger ale so just after ham was released near up near wyoming minnesota  the with the feds on their tail barker stopped at the home of the iceman to pay off their debt so she wanted to make sure we have heard some reports that ham was actually held in the basement of this house but there's some pretty significant f b i documentation that he was raymond but i left because they rented the cottage from of the family known as the lamberts who were headed to scotland for the summer and they were pretty very particular about who they rented mrs lambert told reporters later that when they moved in we told them that they'd never allowed liquor on someone mysteriously came to the door of the lambert cottage and talked to him most immediately thinking picked up and took off and she reported that she'd gotten a telegram that a family member back east was sick and they had to get out of there so about forty eight hours later the feds were on their way to come through and see it was going on but on the way out of town they stopped at the eastside ice company to pay their bill so that there's a pattern here again it always makes you wonder how many of these stories are sort of in there mixed but they're fun to to rehash after they had such success with the kidnapping of william ham they received the hundred thousand dollars ransom they asked for in return ham they decided to go after edward bremmer jr and ask ransom of two hundred thousand dollars that's the that's the kidnapping that they are still under to be a part of and he said no i don't think so it was a little bit risky or kidnapping and things had really started to shift by one hundred thirty three or by this point in time nineteen thirty three hundred thirty four getting close and i think thirty four and what they didn't count on was the fact that edward bremmer is father was a good friend of president roosevelt and so roosevelt actually talked about the kidnapping during his fireside chats and at the same time  lindbergh baby kidnapping had been taking place and the sentiment of the country was not in support of things were getting out of hand was the general feeling so interestingly enough it was at this time that the headline for the hundred thousand dollars interestingly enough it was during this time that the community of the public started to call for a vigilance committee or a vigilante committee and they really went after  lined was to have every newcomer to the lake district investigated and it was a little scary and to serve this notice on all persons who cannot show themselves on a citizen's representatives from each community around the lake or elect of the committee  and there was a plan established to monitor all the vacant vacant welling's and put signs on the doors to make people aware that they're under surveillance and to investigate and register all visitors to the lake as you can imagine that didn't last particularly long or being subpoenaed to go out to newark new jersey to testify and identify a gangster or an alleged gangster who was being tried there in this particular gangster had rented a cottage near  park just across the highway in the neighborhood across the highway from where the v f w sits today if you will in the neighborhood known as really park he rented it in the summer of one hundred thirty two and hauser was basically the real estate agent who coordinated the rental and a woman named m nicholas had been hired as a housekeeper for the two men who rented the cottage so the two of them were flown out to new jersey to identify these folks the renter claimed to be the manager coming to be the new manager of the plantation nightclub but when the sheriff started to wonder  and went over to check nobody knew who he was so as people continue to ask questions the renters decided to take off they left in quite a hurry because they left their food on the table quite a stock of excellent liquor cigars cigarettes but nothing to identify them was left behind when they were picked up in jersey and housing or went out there they were identified you did identify them the government unfortunately failed to convict the gentleman who went by the name of young and he was turned loose three years later in the newspaper it shows up that on armistice day in november voice from minneapolis called the man in clarence a war who was occupying the same house at that point and the voice claimed to be a real estate man from minneapolis and he wanted to know if the board would be home that day as he desired to look over the property with a view of purchasing it live or stated that he would not be at home that day but for him to call another day which was agreed imagine the more surprise when he returned to find the house had been entered while he was gone  further investigation showed that a cement block had been removed from the basement wall and inside the wall was an opening where from all appearances money narcotics or other valuable loot had been cashed there was a pick and a shovel left behind but they provided little or no clues  so we can always speculate on what might have been stuck inside the cinderblock walls it's always entertaining because we do get stories like that once in a while when people are remodeling a house or tearing things down the most common of course is a bottle of whiskey or bootleg liquor stuck in the walls but it be entertaining to find a bank bag or something you never know anyway i know i went for a little many times i appreciate your patien