A sneak peak Tuesday at the new Dillinger Museum in the historic Lake County Courthouse shows that crime does not pay as it provides a look into the last days of the notorious criminal’s life.
Members of the public can participate in a hardhat tour of part of the new museum from 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday to get a taste of what the new museum will look and feel like once completed and the story of John Dillinger and his exploits it will tell.
“We really want to show crime does not pay,” Speros Batitastos, president and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority. The tourism bureau has partnered with the Lake Court House Foundation to move the museum from the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond to the historic Lake County Courthouse.
The sneak peek marks the 81st anniversary of Dillinger’s infamous March 3, 1934, escape from the Lake County Jail a block away.
It was all hands on deck late last week in the lower level of the courthouse where the workers from the tourism bureau finished prepping and building out a section in anticipation of the arrival of museum designer Group Delphi of Fort Wayne Friday to install the exhibits. Group Delphi designed the original museum 15 years ago.
Workers installed display cases and brought over components from the museum including the Death Alley display depicting scenes from the Biograph Theater in Chicago and the wicker coffin used to move Dillinger’s body. They also installed the wall of crime that tells the fate of each of the members of Dillinger’s gang.
There has been much curiosity about from Foundation board members, city officials and the public, he said.
“It will give the public a chance to see what we are doing,” Katie Holderby, executive vice president and chief projects officer for the tourism bureau, said.
Work on the museum will resume after the sneak peak. The project is expected to cost around $260,000. Once complete, the space will include a number of the exhibits from the original museum along with new exhibits featuring artifacts in the tourism authority’s collection that previously have not been on display.
One exhibit that will not make the trip is the 1933 Essex Terraplane like the one John Dillinger drove. The car was featured in the movie “Public Enemy,” parts of which were filmed in Crown Point. The car will be auctioned in later this month.
Holderby said the museum is expected to be complete this summer. A grand opening celebration will be scheduled to coincide with the 81st anniversary of Dillinger’s death July 22, 1934.
