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http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20080311103300 Little Bohemia: The Story of John Dillinger in the Northwoods Submitted: 03/11/2008
MANITOWISH WATERS - Lights, camera, action!
Johnny Depp's new movie about John Dillinger will shoot scenes in the Northwoods, at Little Bohemia in Manitowish Waters.
April 21st, 1934 the sound of gun fire put the small town of Manitowish Waters and the Little Bohemia Resort on the map. Hours after the smoke clears, bullet holes line the walls, windows are shattered and John Dillinger is gone.
Emil Wanatka says, "Everyone keeps asking me how did Dillinger get up here? I never knew until 4 years ago."
Wanatka was 8 years old and his parents owned Little Bohemai. He says Dillinger stopped at a bar, just over the Wisconsin line. The owner knew Emil's father.
He says, "Everyone was bootlegging at the time, my dad was too, and he gave Dillinger a note for my dad."
Dillinger, along with Baby Face Nelson and the rest of the gang arrived at the lodge on April 20th. The group took time to relax, playing card games and even baseball.
Wanatka adds, "I do remember, and this story is out, playing ball in the front yard. A bunch of us were playing ball and I quit playing because Baby Face Nelson was throwing the ball too hard."
The gang was on edge, afraid they'd be caught. They did let Emil and his mother attend his cousin Cal's 9th birthday party. It was there that the adults decided it was time to notify the FBI of Dillinger's whereabouts.
Cal LaPorte says, "This was April 21st, which was my birthday. I thought, and I still swear by it, he made the telephone call to Rhinelander to get a hold of the FBI."
FBI agents, showed up at Little Bohemia that night, just as a group from the Civilian Conservation Corps. was leaving the lodge. Thinking the men were with Dillinger, the FBI started firing.
LaPorte adds, "The FBI hollered to stop and they didn't so they shot the whole car full of holes. Killed a couple of the people."
The shots fired by the FBI was all the warning Dillinger and his gang needed. They ran upstairs grabbed the money and their guns, jumped out the second story window onto the roof. From there they jumped to the ground and dispersed, running in different directions across the lake.
Wanatka says, "There were bullet holes upstairs. One of the stories is that somebody was up on the roof with a machine gun."
The gangsters scattered, stealing cars from different neighbors to get away. When the excitement was over, Emil and Cal returned to Little Bohemia.
Wanatka says, "I went upstairs to my room, whatever for, and I was crying when I came down. Well they teared gased the place!"
LaPorte adds, "We tried to get upstairs but the tear gas burned your eyes and your throat and the windows were broken out here and there, where they shot 'em up you know."
Those bullet holes are still in the walls, the glass is still shattered and a few of Dillinger's personal items remain.
"There has been so many people looking for Dillinger's cash buried in the ground. There was never such a thing but it was good for advertising," says LaPorte.
Wanatka says, "I've made a lot of jokes about that, 'How do you think my father paid for all this.' It would have been awful hard to bury it in the frozen ground when people are shooting at you."
Mari Beth Kolarchek grew up at the lodge, she says, "Fred, that owned the place last, his remark was, Dillinger only left because he had too."
And now that "Public Enemies" is coming to the Northwoods, it looks like John Dillinger will get to visit again.
The owners of Little Bohemia have confirmed to Newswatch 12 that scenes from "Public Enemies" will be shot at Little Bohemia.
Ruth Gardner, owner of Voss' Birchwood landing, says studio officials have also contacted her.
They'll be using some of her old furniture and antiques for filming.
Little Bohemia officials say the movie will start shooting at the end of March but they aren't sure when the crew will make it to the Northwoods. Copyright© 2008 Rockfleet Broadcasting