So, I'm sitting next to Jeremy before church on Easter Sunday and he asks if I'm going to Crown Point on Monday. I ask him why and he tells me that Johnny Depp is suppose to be in town for the shooting of his new movie, Public Enemy, where he is playing John Dillinger.
Without missing a beat, I say, "who's playing Grandpa Bryant?
Gangster Lore tells the story of John Dillinger being moved to the "inescapable jail" at Crown Point while he was waiting trial for a murder that took place during an East Chicago Bank robbery.
The story is a little different in every account printed, but he basically walked out of the jail, after holding up the guards with a fake gun (though many accounts say it was real), locking them in a cell and then leaving town in the sheriff's car.Family Lore brings the Bryant's into the story by telling us that Grandpa Winfred Bryant was there on that infamous day and at least two written accounts of the story indicate that he may have been one of the first guards that dealt with Dillinger face to face.
I never met Grandpa Bryant as he died 10 years before I was born. So I don't have a first hand account of the story. I don't remember my mom ever talking about it (but most likely I was just too adolescent to listen). But here is what I have gathered from family and from written accounts.
Apparently the city of Crown Point called in Volunteers and extra help from the area. Since Grandpa Bryant was a trustee he went to the jail to help provide the extra man-power to guard the famous criminal. We had always heard that Dillinger pulled a fake gun carved out of soap or wood and rounded up the guards (including Grandpa) and locked them in the cell and escaped.
I remember in the 80's when the Cobb's came for a visit, we took a tour of the jailhouse and there being a display of some sort.
A few years ago, one of the local papers did an article rehashing the famous day and there was a collage of several clippings from by-gone papers and one had a story none of us remember hearing that actually had more detail. (Find this for me, Susie)!! I'm relying on memory to summarize, but basically it said that Winfred Bryant was the guard on duty in the exercise room where the prisoners were taken and it was here where Dillinger, possibly with the help (or holding up) of a maintenance man, gained possession of the keys and then pulled the famous "gun."
After my talk with Jeremy, I poked around on the Internet and found an excerpt from this book.
Here's what it has to say:
(note the misspelling of Grandpa's name is in the original)
"Prison handyman Sam Cahoon, sixty, went about his normal routine that morning, working the various dials controlling the maze of doors that allowed prisoners to file into the dayroom for breakfast. While the cons were at large, Cahoon then did something he had never done before in his six years at the jail. He opened the main cell-block door while the prisoners were out of their cells in the walkway. The normal procedure was to wait until they were locked down in the day room.
Suddenly, John Dillinger elbowed aside two African-American trustees, Charles Lewis and Ernest Walker, and appeared at the opened door. The gangster pushed Cahoon against the control box and shoved a pistol under his chin. "I don't want to kill anyone, so you just do what I tell you," Dillinger said, shifting the weapon to Cahoon's stomach. "If you want to live, get in the cell block and be quick about it!"
"What's the matter, John, haven't we been good to you?" Cahoon blurted.
"Never mind."
Guard Wilfred Bryant, standing a few feet away in shock, noticed Dillinger struggling to keep his grip on the weapon, at one point grabbing it with both hands. Bryant didn't know what to make of that---not that he had a lot of time to think about it. Herbert Youngblood, an African-American inmate charged with murder, approached Bryant wielding a toilet plunger handle. He asked Bryant if he had a gun. The petrified guard responded that he was unarmed. Youngblood then ushered Bryant and the trustees, Lewis and Walker, into the number-two cell. Cahoon started heading there as well, but Dillinger stopped him. "Not you, you stay out here, I have use for you. You're gonna take me outta here."
(read more here)
I also remember, Aunt Mary telling me that she remembered Grandpa Bryant coming home after being gone a long while (maybe he stayed in CP) and coming into her room and giving her a gift.
So, I'm giving a shout out to all you Bryants (trying to expand the memory vault with the cousin emails off of Jane Sanders book), if you were lucky enough to hear Grandpa Bryant tell his story or smart enough to ask questions and old enough to listen cause you knew you would want to know, then email me your story or post it in a comment.
Directions to here:
So who should play Grandpa Bryant?
I'm thinking Ed Harris
And if you want to see Darold Moore, I mean Johnny Depp, in Crown Point go here. (Don't you think Johnny looks like Darold)?
