John Dillinger - FBI's Public Enemy #1

John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster of the Great Depression. He led a group known as the "Dillinger Gang", which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times but escaped twice. He was charged, but not convicted, of the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer who shot Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout; it was the only time Dillinger was charged with homicide.

On Jan. 9, 1934, bank robber John Dillinger and two members of his gang checked into the downtown Gardner Hotel. Dillinger signed the name John D. Ball on the registry and stayed in room 221. According to then sheriff Chris Fox, Dillinger didn’t break any laws during his stay, therefore the El Paso Sheriff’s Department did not arrest him.

Dillinger checked out a few days later but was captured Jan. 25, 1934 in Tucson, Arizona. After the Tucson arrest, Dillinger was transferred to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, from which he escaped a month later. 

Cormac McCarthy

Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, American novelist, Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award Winner Cormac McCarthy wrote several of his books while living at the Gardner. He used the Gardner Hotel as a source of inspiration for his novels and even mentions the hotel by name in several of his books.

Guardian interview_"Four or five years ago, my son (John, then aged three or four) and I went to El Paso, (in Texas) and we checked into the old hotel there. And one night, John was asleep, it was probably about two in the morning, and I went over and just stood and looked out the window at this town. There was nothing moving but I could hear the trains going through, a very lonesome sound. I just had this image of what this town might look like in 50 or 100 years… fires up on the hill and everything being laid to waste, and I thought a lot about my little boy. So I wrote two pages. And then about four years later I realized that it wasn't two pages of a book, it was a book, and it was about that man, and that boy.'

Netflix's Longmire

Gardner Hotel mentioned in Craig Johnson's 2018 novel "The Depth of Winter", the main character, a modern Wyoming Sheriff named Walt Longmire who is searching for his daughter that has been kidnapped to Mexico, stays in and then escapes from the Gardner Hotel in El Paso on his way to Mexico to find her. Longmire stays in room 221 at the Gardner.  Several pages in the book take place in the Gardner Hotel.  It also mentions the John Dillinger gang staying there on a cold, wet evening in 1934, before later being caught and arrested in Tucson. Quite likely the author either visited or stayed in the Gardner while researching sites for his book to take place.  Craig Johnson's 14 best selling novels (with more on the way) about Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire were made into a very popular 6 season series on Netflix called "Longmire".

The Netflix series characters and stories differ somewhat from the novels. 

One of the more recent novels included the main character staying in room #201 and then escaping from the Gardner Hotel via the roof from those trying to prevent him from going to Mexico to rescue his daughter.  Unfortunately this particular novel is not included in the Netflix series stories, which ended about the time this novel was written.

Glory Road

Glory Road is a 2006 American sports drama film directed by James Gartner, based on a true story surrounding the events leading to the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Championship. Don Haskins portrayed by Josh Lucas, head coach of Texas Western College (now known as University of Texas at El Paso or UTEP), coached a team with an all-black starting lineup, a first in NCAA history. Glory Road explores racism, discrimination, and student athletics.

Several scenes from Glory Road were filmed at the Gardner Hotel in 2004.