John Dillinger

Much of the History of Pharmacy collection was given to the College of Pharmacy by Jesse and Mary Hurlbut. In his later years, Jess, a pharmacist, served as the state pharmacy board inspector. He came to Arizona in the early 1930s after losing his pharmacies in Santa Barbara, California due to severe earthquakes. Lucien Brunswick, owner of the Brunswick Wholesale Drug Company in Tucson, suggested that Jess move to Tucson because he had a vacant store there, the Owl Drug Store. Jess moved in and began filling prescriptions and serving breakfast and lunch to his customers.

Jess noticed that one of his customers was a bit different than the rest: the stranger who dined daily at his lunch counter dressed more like an "Easterner," as Jess described him, and he had a habit of chewing a stick or two of Black Jack gum as he waited for his meal. When his meal arrived, the stranger always stuck his gum underneath the counter. One morning in January 1934, Jess opened his newspaper and read that the notorious Dillinger Gang had been captured in Tucson. To Jess' surprise, it was John Dillinger himself who had been his patron. Dillinger was extradited from Arizona, but he later escaped the Crown Point jail in Indiana by carving a gun from a broom handle and bluffing his jailer.