By ERIC C. RODENBERG
Antique Week Correspondent

OTTAWA, Ohio – If you  listen carefully within the quiet of Stowe’s Fine Art shop, you may hear the ethereal whispers of Al “Creepy” Karpis, Doc Barker or John Dillinger.

Once it is said, these desperados shared some raucous “downtime” in this two-story 1880 German Victorian farm house at the edge of town. History has it from many good sources that Karpis and Barker, one of the members of the infamous Ma Barker Gang, found a way station in Ottawa while on the run in the early 1930s. It was there, just a little north of downtown, they found a good fried chicken meal, a card game and fine home-brewed beer. During those Depression years after millions of families lost their life savings, bank robbers were not particularly viewed as terrible criminals. Many of these rural speakeasies welcomed their company, and stories of bravado.

“There used to be a lot of good Germans around Ottawa and they all knew how to make alcoholic beverages,” James Bruce Stowe says. “There were a lot of bootleggers in the area, they (the bank robbers) knew they were safe. They knew they could find a good meal, a card game, and good home brew.”

Stowe, who has been buying and selling antiques since the 1970s, has operated out of his house at 934 North Defiance St. for nearly 10 years. From his perspective as an historian and a person with a formal education in fine art, Stowe has made the commitment to “study up” on each piece he brings into the shop for sale. During 2008, Stowe closed the shop after taking on an assignment to paint The Celebration of Progress, a large mural in downtown Ottawa. Working with fellow artist Oscar Velasquez, Stowe – who has a Masters Degree in Fine Arts – said the project consumed much of 2008. The previous year, after the August flooding devastated downtown shops, proved to be a fairly dismal year for Ottawa.
So it is with renewed hope that Stowe is opening Stowe’s Fine Art. The shop had previously been called an “antiques and art” store; however, Stowe is moving away from the antiques side and more into fine art. He’s still in the process of liquidating some antiques, while putting more of his energies into buying and selling paintings, prints and sculptures. He will also be selling his own work out of the shop.

Re-opening a shop in the face of the current economy has given Stowe some pause for thought. “I think we’re all holding our breath,” he says. “But, I still believe it’s the thing to do.”

Stowe has conferred with former owners of the house and town historians about the lively background of the structure. He has heard several stories of stylish men and ladies getting out of fancy out-of-state cars and entering the Stowe house.

Although hardly substantiated, local legend also has it that John Dillinger also stayed at the Stowe house. It is said that he practiced his shooting skills on a wood knot on the outside of a barn behind the house.

“That barn has long been gone,” Stowe says.

Dillinger’s activities in nearby Lima, Ohio, catapulted he and his gang to infamous nationwide notoriety in 1933 after a police officer was killed during a jail break.

The Karpis-Barker gang was one of the most formidable criminal gangs of the 1930s. They robbed a number of banks, hijacked mail deliveries and discovered the lucrative field of kidnapping after collecting a $100,000 ransom from the abduction of millionaire Minnesota brewer William Hamm.

Shortly after that, the gang kidnapped Minnesota banker Edward Bremer Jr., a friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, upping the ante to $200,000.

Karpis and Barker were known to haunt areas throughout northern Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota. FBI records illustrate much of their activity in the north part of the state. One of the last “jobs” Karpis pulled off was an “Old West” style train robbery in Garrettsville, Ohio, netting about $27,000.

Karpis was ultimately captured in New Orleans, and received a life sentence. He served most of his sentence “On the Rock,” completing the longest sentence of any prisoner at Alcatraz of 26 years.

His partner, Doc Barker, was shot on the rocks of Alcatraz Island during one of the first attempted escapes from in 1939.
Disregarding guards’ orders, Barker continued to tie pieces of wood together in attempts to construct a makeshift raft. He was shot in the head and killed as he waded into the water.

Dillinger, of course, was killed outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago after his betrayal by the “Lady in Red.”

Despite the lurid bloodshed that touched upon the Stowe house, albeit in an innocent manner, business goes on – maybe not as always – in the two-story Victorian.

And, if you stand in just the right place, among the art and paintings; you might catch the waft of fried chicken, a scent of home brew, and perhaps – if you have you let your imagine drift – eavesdrop in on the gang planning their next “caper.”