Theater damaged in Dillinger shoot-out to be sold

SOUTH BEND – A South Bend theater that still bears bullet holes from a shoot-out that followed John Dillinger’s last bank heist will be auctioned off.

The historic State Theatre will be sold in an online auction that begins Thursday and runs through July 30. NAI Global of Albuquerque, N.M., is selling the building for a minister who bought the theater three years ago for Christian entertainment but now faces a foreclosure threat.

Its marquee and terra cotta facade still contain holes from the hail of gunfire that followed the Dillinger gang’s June 30, 1934, robbery of a nearby bank in which a police officer was slain.

Dillinger was shot and killed by FBI agents in Chicago less than a month later.