John Dillinger's Mooresville Home

 Click Video (Above) to Play

Just before 1900, John Dillinger’s father, John Wilson Dillinger, opened a grocery store in Indianapolis.  Young Johnny was born in 1903, and his mother, Mary Ellen “Mollie” Lancaster Dillinger, was hospitalized and died in 1906.  In 1912 John senior married his second wife, Elizabeth Fields, who was from Mooresville.  (Click the images below to enlarge.)

John Wilson Dillinger (left) with his son, Hubert Dillinger,

waiting to identify John Dillinger's body (1934)

(courtesy of APA/Getty Images)

 

Young Johnny’s childhood was average and unexceptional.  Although some biographers have painted young Johnny as a juvenile delinquent, those who knew him best recalled a friendly, good-natured, energetic, high-spirited child.  His youthful misdeeds were limited to relatively mild boyish pranks.  Young Johnny left school after 8^th grade to work in a variety of jobs, including messenger, machinist, upholsterer, and factory worker.

 

John Dillinger (circa 1922) (courtesy of Getty Images)

In 1920 John senior sold his grocery business and purchased a farm just north of Mooresville, his second wife’s hometown.  Young Johnny was 17 years old.  The Dillinger farm was located along Old State Road 267 (today’s North Monroe Street at Northridge Drive), northwest of where Paul Hadley Middle School is now situated.  The farmhouse was later owned by one of John Dillinger’s great nephews.

 Dillinger Farmhouse in 2007

(courtesy of Google Maps)

Dillinger farmhouse in 1934 (photo by Walter

Ranzini/N.Y. Daily News) (courtesy of Getty Images)

 

John Dillinger, Semi-Pro Baseball Player

Did you know that notorious bank robber John Dillinger played semi-professional baseball in Mooresville and Martinsville?  Our video (below) elaborates.

Mooresville Moments #22, by Mooresville Public Library

In her history of Mooresville, Clara Richardson wrote that Chester E. Lawrence, when he owned Bradley Brick Company (later, the Wooley Company), Lawrence sold a parcel of land to the Town of Mooresville to be used as the Town Baseball Park.  Bradley Brick (Wooley Co.) was located on the south side of South Street, just east of the railroad tracks, and it was on this land tract that the baseball park was built.  (Click images below to enlarge)

Bradley Brick Company was founded in 1904

(Mooresville Times, March 11, 1904)

Office of Bradley Brick Company (constructed circa 1904)(undated photos)

(William "Tommy" McElwain stands in front of office)

Bradley Brick Company was located just west (to the right, in the photo)

of Old Town Park (circa 1885 photo)

  

Town Baseball Park was home to the Mooresville Walkovers, a semi-professional baseball team that won 26 straight games in 1919.  The Walkovers were hardly walked-over by their opponents; their won-loss record was quite respectable.

1919 Mooresville Walkovers won 26 straight games, a team record

(Mooresville Times, October 8, 1964)

  

1914 Mooresville Walkovers Team Photo

In 1924, John Dillinger played shortstop and second base, both for the Mooresville Walkovers and the Martinsville Athletics, another semi-professional baseball team.

Mockup Baseball Card for John Dillinger

1924 Martinsville Athletics Team Photo

(John Dillinger indicated by arrow)

One of the teams' umpires was Mooresville resident Ed Singleton, Dillinger's drinking buddy and accomplice in Dillinger's attempted holdup of Mooresville's West End Grocery owner Frank Morgan.  Some say that it was Singleton that talked Dillinger into committing this attempted robbery.  Regardless, Dillinger's conviction and severe punishment were directly responsible for turning his life toward crime.

What would have happened had Dillinger and Singleton not tried to rob Morgan?  Baseball would probably never have been more than a pastime for Dillinger.  Few baseball players have sufficient skills to make it to the major league, or even the minor leagues.  Mooresville and Martinsville's semi-pro teams were "minor minors," and Dillinger's athletic abilities were such that he likely would have risen no higher.  If not for his imprisonment, he might have pursued an ordinary, honest life.  But "what ifs" are better suited for alternative history novelists.  John Dillinger's history is what it is, and we're forced to accept its lessons as given.

 

Pandemics & Epidemics in Mooresville, Indiana During the Last Century

Mooresville and Morgan County, Indiana are no strangers to pandemics, epidemics, and quarantines, as newspaper clippings from the last hundred years or so testify.  Mooresville Public Library has a video about it, which you may watch below.

"Pandemics & Epidemics in Mooresville and Morgan County, Indiana"

(Mooresville Moments #21)

(Click Clipping Above to Play Video)

During the 1918 Influenza pandemic, public gatherings were banned, schools closed, and masks were required apparel for persons in theaters, stores, factories, and other public places.  (Click the articles below to enlarge.)

 Martinsville Daily Reporter, November 19, 1918, p. 1

 

 Martinsville Daily Reporter, October 12, 1918, p. 4

A 1926 scarlet fever outbreak forced Mooresville schools to be closed, and students, staff, and their families were quarantined.  Once again, churches, movie theaters, and public entertainments and gatherings were prohibited.

 Mooresville Times, February 19, 1926

During the scarlet fever quarantine, measles forced a popular baby conference to be cancelled.

Mooresville Times, February 26, 1926

A 1939 smallpox epidemic compelled a quarantine, with school closings and restrictions upon public gatherings.

Mooresville Times, April 20, 1939 to May 4, 1939

Of course, the severity of these disease outbreaks was nowhere near as great as the 2020 Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but they illustrate how citizens and government leaders faced such health crises in our community in the past.