Steiner regales Rotary with Bluffton's crime of the century
Ada Icon founder Fred Steiner visited the Ada Rotary to provide a program called "Four Guys Walk into a Bluffton Bank and the rest is Bluffton Oral History." The four guys? John Dillinger and his gang. Where and when? Bluffton on August 14, 1933.
Steiner explains that one firsthand account was written down. Dozens of other oral accounts vary in their details.
Steiner sold the Bluffton and Ada Icons in 2021. He now writes a local history blog at www.BlufftonForever.com. These writings are also featured on Sunday on www.BlufftonIcon.com.
Recent series include "Famous from Bluffton" and Bluffton's 10 most mysterious locations.
But let's let Fred tell the story. Here's his "about" section from LinkedIn:
"Check out my new website: www.blufftonforever.com. I consider it the Bluffton, Ohio, history channel.
"Containig essays, photographs and accounts old and new, Bluffton Forever focuses on the hearty souls, art, flora, fauna, Swiss ingenuity and other factors that make Bluffton a vibrant, rural Midwest community worth celebrating.
"I've created this website for viewer enjoyment. As a Bluffton lifer, I'm a 1968 Bluffton HS grad, spent one year at Bluffton College and graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1972 with a degree in journalism.
"I've edited the Bluffton News, a weekly community newspaper from 1978 to 2009 – minus 5 years somewhere inside that era as director of editorial and marketing at CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio."
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Wednesday, June 10, 2026
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