The Hotel Congress, Tucson

The Congress was built at the same time as the Rialto across Congress Street in Tucson and by the same builder. At the time -- 1919-20 -- it was the general opinion of Tucson's sages that no one would venture that far east for entertainment, but both the hotel and the theater became Tucson landmarks.

The Congress' claim to fame outside the Old Pueblo, however, is its role in the capture of the Depression Era's "Public Enemy #1," John Dillinger. In 1934, to escape the heat from their ambitious career as bank robbers in the Midwest, Dillinger and his gang went to Tucson. A couple of the gangsters stayed at the Congress under assumed names. When the basement fire that would destroy the hotel's third floor, where the gang members were quartered, broke out and spread up the elevator shaft, the desk clerk alerted the guests on the threatened floor (using the switchboard still in use today), and the two robbers were evacuated by aerial ladders. They talked a couple of firemen (some say the firefighters were urged by a big tip) into rescuing their luggage from the fire. Later, one of the firemen recognized a photo in True Detective magazine as one of the generous fellows he'd helped at the Congress fire. The Tucson police were notified, and the gang, including Dillinger, was rounded up at a house downtown. As one source says, the Tucson police accomplished in 5 hours what several Big City forces and the Bureau of Investigation, under J. Edgar Hoover, hadn't been able to do in months.

"Dillinger Days" are held on Congress Street in February and feature "shootouts" between cops and robbers and getaways in vintage cars, even though no shots were fired during the actual Dillinger arrest.

To learn more about the hotel's history and its present incarnation, visit its web site.

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