Photo Friday: Goshen, Indiana police booth

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Photo Friday: Goshen, Indiana police booth

This little police booth in the heart of Goshen, Indiana is a relic from the days when Indianapolis-born John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and other 1930s gangsters rolled across the state along the Lincoln Highway stealing guns, ammunition and emptying bank vaults.

In 1933, Dillinger's gang brazenly raided police stations in nearby Auburn, Peru and Warsaw to steal weapons like machine guns, along with ammunition and bullet-proof vests.

Dillinger and Floyd hit a South Bend bank in 1934, killing a police officer in the process.

With Auburn to the east, Peru to the west, Warsaw to the south and South Bend to the north, Goshen officials may have been at least a bit justified in erecting this mini police station in the heart of town, right next to the Elkhart County Courthouse, positioning police to better protect the two banks in town that stood on two of the other four corners of this intersection.

The little concrete-block booth with its strategic location and bullet-proof glass with firing ports seemed like a good idea, but Dillinger and most of the other folks in his gang were dead or imprisoned by the time the police booth was finished in 1939.

Still, the booth saw use as the Goshen Police Department's highly visible front desk in the city's central business district until 1970. Police officers manned it 24 hours a day and locals usually went to the booth to file police reports rather than go to the larger station.

Today the booth stands as a bit of a curiosity with one local group recently helping to repair and replace some of the windows.

I particularly like the 1930s Art Deco-style detailing around the top of the booth.