The Ma Barker hide-out, site of the longest shootout in FBI history, drew more international publicity than solid offers when it was recently scheduled for auction, and it is now being listed for sale.
The two-story house in Ocklawaha, Fla., was slated to be auctioned Oct. 5, but the event was canceled when real estate agents said their clients were cool to the $1-million starting bid, said Roger Soderstrom, broker for listing agent Stirling Sotheby's International Realty.
"We had a group of eight owners, and they were back and forth on what they thought it was worth," he said. The sale of the 10-acre property includes the lakefront, two-story frame house and its furnishings, which include some original pieces. It is now listed at $889,000.
When plans for an auction were first reported in August, news of the proposed sale was reported by publications around the world. The story was propelled by the sale's inclusion of certain artifacts, such as FBI documents, maps of agents' positions during the shootout, and black-and-white photographs showing the gunned-down bodies of Barker and one of her four sons, Fred Barker.
Ma Barker, leader of the Barker-Karpis gang, was labeled Public Enemy No. 1 by the federal government for a spree of slayings, kidnappings and robberies throughout the Midwest in the early 1930s. She rented the retreat as a hide-out, and federal agents learned of it when they found clues during a raid of the Chicago home of another son, Arthur "Doc" Barker.
A hand-drawn sketch from federal authorities shows an overview of the Ocklawaha house, with the names and positions of the agents who surrounded it starting at 6 a.m. Jan. 16, 1935, armed with three machine guns, two rifles, two shotguns, gas canisters and other equipment, including bulletproof vests.
An FBI memo says that agents initiated the encounter by throwing two or three canisters of tear gas into the house at 7:15 a.m. Then the shooting began, with rounds fired by the agents and the Barkers, who were using what sounded like a Thompson submachine gun.
By 10 a.m., agents stationed at the rear of the house began running out of ammunition and needed to be resupplied. By 11:30 a.m., the shooting had ceased. Agents, none of whom were killed, persuaded Willie Woodbury, a handyman on the estate, to check inside and make certain Ma Barker and her son Fred were dead. They were.
mshanklin@tribune.com
Ma Barker's infamous Florida hide-out for sale
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Ma Barker's infamous Florida hide-out for sale
