The deaths of John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Red” Hamilton, Homer Van Meter, Tommy Carroll and Eddie Green were among those reported in newspapers all across the U.S. It was the same year that Chicago mobster Al Capone was transferred from a federal penitentiary in Atlanta to newly opened Alcatraz off the coast of California. The public was as equally captivated by stories of brazen bank robberies and kidnappings and shootouts with law enforcement as they were of the blood soaked details of the end of each gangster’s life.

The 1933 capture of noted gangster “Machine Gun” Kelly and his wife, Kathryn, set the stage for more brazen headlines to come in 1934. Kelly and Kathryn both received lifetime sentences behind bars. George Kelly Barnes was implicated in bootlegging, bank robbing and kidnapping. He received his nickname for his preference in firearms, the Thompson .45 caliber machine gun that would become synonymous with the gangster era. While incarcerated Kelly learned about the killing of others of his ilk. He died, lead free, on July 18, 1954.

The Minot Daily News prominently displayed stories, usually with bold front page headlines, of nearly every gangster’s fatal confrontation with law enforcement officers. A curious exception was the killing of the notorious duo of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. They didn’t quite fit the profile of the notable gangsters of the day but they were very well known throughout the U.S., having left a trail of death in their wake.

Bonnie and Clyde were wanted for dozens of robberies ranging from small stores to banks. Most accounts of their exploits agree that they killed at least nine law officers. They met their end on May 23, 1934, near Sailes, La., in a hail of bullets shot from the guns of a special squad of lawmen who had been relentlessly tracking them.

File Photo It was gangster “Pretty Boy” Floyd who captured the headline of the October 23, 1934, edition of The Minot Daily News. Floyd was one of several nationally known criminals who met their end in 1934.

The deaths of Bonnie and Clyde was huge news throughout the U.S. The public had long been riveted to stories about the pair’s latest brush with the law and their brash robberies. The day after the duo was slumped in death in their bullet-riddled car, newspapers big and small splashed the news in headlines and detailed their last moments on earth.

But on May 24, 1934, it was Montgomery Wards, not Bonnie and Clyde, that grabbed the front page headline and nearly all the copy within the three daily issues of the Minot Daily News. Advertisements for $5 lawnmowers, $15 mattresses and $109 refrigerators filled the pages. As famous as the murderous pair might have been, of more apparent importance in Minot was the opening of a new store on Main Street. The story of Bonnie and Clyde’s death was buried, without photographs, deep on page 24.

Bonnie and Clyde aside, descriptive accounts of the end of other gangsters were prominently displayed in the Minot Daily News in 1934. It was the year when “Public Enemy No. 1” was introduced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Reaching that infamous honor in 1934 were John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson. All would be killed within months of each other.

Dillinger was the leader of the most vile pack of gangsters ever assembled on U.S. soil. As fellow gang members were killed, he added others with reputations as cold-blooded killers. The time was the “Dirty 30’s,” the depression era when unemployment was high and soup lines long. Criminals often had the upper hand on law enforcement by arming themselves with fully automatic weapons and driving the fastest automobiles of the day, usually powered by the new Ford V-8 that could easily outrun the law.

Local law enforcement didn’t cross state lines, meaning gangsters making a quick get-away were often out of reach of those pursuing them. Communication was much different than today which allowed ample time for gangsters to disperse great distances before word of their felonious deeds became known.

One early indication that 1934 would be a very bloody year for lawmen and gangsters happened on March 16, 1934. Herbert Youngblood, a man who was charged with murder and had helped Dillinger escape from an Indiana jail, died in a shootout with lawmen at a small store in Port Huron, Mich. Youngblood was shot 10 times and died a few hours later. One lawman was killed and two seriously wounded in the close gunfight.

On June 17, 1933, gangsters had killed four lawmen outside a train station in Kansas City in a botched effort to free fellow gangster Frank “Jelly” Nash, a man implicated in 200 bank robberies. In January 1934, Congress passed a new law that would allow FBI agents to carry firearms and make arrests. That set the stage for the beginning of the end for the nation’s most notable gangsters.

Dillinger’s henchmen were known to be the worst of the worst, never hesitating to shoot and kill law enforcement or anyone else they perceived to be a threat. Armed with new authority the fledgling FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, became the lead agency tasked with tracking down and apprehending the ruthless gangsters of the time. Field agent Melvin Purvis became as well known throughout the U.S. as the gangsters he sought.

One by one gangsters associated with Dillinger met their end, usually face down in a pool of blood. On April 10, 1934, Dillinger gang member Harold Eugene “Eddie” Green was shot at Green’s safehouse in St. Paul, Minn., by FBI agents armed with Thompson machine guns. Green died seven days later.

The notorious gangster was part of the Dillinger gang that robbed a bank in Sioux Falls, S.D., of $49,500 a month earlier. Green was known as a “jug marker” to fellow gangsters. The term was used to describe a trusted and meticulous planner of bank robberies.

Later that same month, on April 23, John “Red” Hamilton was hit during a shootout with law enforcement in Hastings, Minn. Hamilton, severely wounded, was in a car with Dillinger and fellow gang member Homer Van Meter as they made their escape. Hamilton died three days later. Dillinger buried him, but not before covering Hamilton’s body in lye in the hopes of preventing identification. Hamilton’s grave, in a gravel pit, was discovered in late 1935. He was identified by prison dental records.

The deaths of Green and Hamilton, and their exploits in states bordering North Dakota, grabbed the attention of state residents. Less than two months later, on July 23, 1934, the headline on the front page of Minot Daily News would announce the end of Public Enemy No. 1. The headline read, “Federal Agents Kill John Dillinger.”

Dillinger was shot and killed shortly after leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago. The notorious gangster had a connection of sorts to North Dakota. His girlfriend at the time of his death was Rita “Polly” Hamilton who, a few years earlier, was a runaway from Fargo. She was one of two women who were with Dillinger at the movie, a gangster story titled, “Manhattan Melodrama.”

One month and a day after Dillinger met his end by a bullet through the head, gang member Homer Van Meter was killed by police in St. Paul in an exchange of gunfire. Van Meter and Dillinger were long-time associates, having met when both were incarcerated in Indiana. The gangster was the trigger man in at least three killings of law enforcement officers and was a participant in several bank robberies with Dillinger, the last of which occurred June 30, 1934, in South Bend, Ind.

Former Dillinger gang members Charles Makley and Harry Pierpont were the next names added to the roster of the dead in 1934. Both were on death row in an Ohio penitentiary, having been convicted for the murder of a sheriff. Makley, known as “Fat Charles,” was shot dead during an attempted escape. Pierpont was shot several times but survived. He was still recovering from his bullet wounds when he was carried to the electric chair and put to death on Oct. 17, 1934. There can be little doubt that, as the list of the slain continued to grow, it served to even further harden those dangerous gangsters still at large.

On Oct. 23, 1934, the front page headline of the Minot Daily News was, “Pretty Boy Floyd Killed by Officers.” Floyd had replaced Dillinger as Public Enemy No. 1. FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis caught up with Floyd in a cornfield in Ohio. His watch was marked with 10 grooves, one for each man he had killed, some of them during approximately 20 bank robberies credited to Floyd.

The bloodbath of 1934 did not end with Floyd’s lifeless body lying in Ohio dirt. Two more highly sought after gangsters remained on the run. They were Dillinger gang members Baby Face Nelson and Tommy Carroll.

Nelson was the new Public Enemy No. 1, and with good reason. He was a psychopath and a stone cold killer. When other criminals would flee from encounters with law enforcement officers Nelson would attack. He shot his first person at age 7 and once, in a fit of road rage, chased down a vehicle and delivered a fatal shot to the driver – a paint salesman. Nelson was so deranged that he was said to have killed a witness scheduled to testify against two of his associates, quartered him and threw the body parts down an abandoned mine shaft.

When Nelson’s body was examined following his final deadly shootout it was discovered he had been shot nine times, including a shotgun blast to his legs. Nevertheless, the ruthless gangster killed two law enforcement officers after receiving his mortal wounds.

The day after Nelson was killed officers caught up with Carroll. The former boxer was a long-time member of the Dillinger gang. When he was cornered by two detectives on a street in Waterloo, Iowa, and told he was “under arrest” Carroll replied, “The hell I am” while reaching for a gun.

One of the detectives knocked Carroll down with a closed fist and, seconds later, shot Carroll four times as he was attempting to run away. Carroll survived the shooting for a few hours but refused to give any meaningful information to police. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery in St. Paul, Minn.

With Carroll’s death bloody 1934 the notable battles between gangsters and law officers drew to a close. Three Public Enemy No. 1’s were in their graves. The Dillinger gang was decimated.

In 1935 headlines about gangsters had virtually become a thing of the past. There were a few exceptions, but none that garnered anywhere near the attention of the nation by those notorious individuals who met their end in 1934.

Ma Barker, mother of two members of the Barker-Karpis gang, was killed by law enforcement on Jan. 16, 1935. Little more than a year later Alvin “Creepy” Karpis was taken alive in New Orleans. The headline in the Minot Daily News read, “Karpis Scared to Death When Caught.”

Karpis was the nation’s fourth Public Enemy No. 1 and the only one to escape death. He served the longest time of any federal prisoner at Alcatraz, 26 years. As Alcatraz was being closed in 1962 Karpis was moved to the McNeil Island Penitentiary in Washington. It was there he became friends with a young Charles Manson, a man Karpis described as having a “pleasing personality.”

Karpis was paroled in 1969 and settled for a time in Montreal, Canada, before moving to Spain. He died in that country in 1979, essentially the last of the nationally known depression era gangsters.

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Gangster bloodbath of 1934

March 16 – Herbert Youngblood, shot and killed.

April 10 – Eddie Green, shot and killed.

April 26 – Red Hamilton, shot and killed.

May 23 – Bonnie and Clyde, shot and killed.

July 22 – John Dillinger, shot and killed.

Aug. 23 – Homer Van Meter, shot and killed.

Sept. 22 – Charles Makley, shot and killed.

Oct. 17 – Harry Pierpont, electric chair.

Oct. 22 – Pretty Boy Floyd, shot and killed.

Nov. 27 – Baby Face Nelson, shot and killed.

Nov. 28 – Tommy Carroll, shot and killed.