It was 100 years ago this September that my Grandfather Wrench helped solve a Nuckolls County bank robbery. I’ve shared this story in this newspaper before but it is one as a youngster I often asked my grandfather to tell. Hopefully the readers of this column will enjoy reading it again.
From The Sept. 25, 1924 edition of The Express
Superior is considerably in the limelight right now for having captured an honest to goodness bank robber, guns, money and all.
Yes, sir, inside of six hours Monday, Mr. Robber was arrested, jailed, demobilized of guns and stolen money, signed a confession and en route to Sheriff Worthy Wood’s boarding house at Nelson.
It happened like this:
Saturday morning when Cashier J. W. Kirkbride of the Bostwick Bank entered his bank in Bostwick, he was confronted by a man wearing a mask and pointing a gun in his face. Mr. Kirkbride was ordered to open the vault after the robber had locked the bank entrance door from the inside. The vault was opened and what available cash the robber saw he took, amounting to nearly $500 in silver and a little more than $800 in currency. The silver was placed in a hand bag and Mr. Kirkbride locked in the vault. The robber left through the back of the bank where he had effected an entrance during the night.
Mr. Kirkbride’s son, Donald, came to the bank shortly after the robbery and released his father. The alarm was at once given and the whole population started the hunt for the robber. His tracks were plainly followed through the potato and weed patches back of the bank where a 32-caliber gun was also found which he had dropped. The pursuers thought they tracked him to the bridge on the Republican. When the bloodhounds came, they went to the bridge and stopped so it was supposed the robber had been met there by an accomplice with a car, thus destroying the trail.
Monday morning, about 9 o’clock, Lew Schwartz saw a young man enter the Barnard drug store who had recently given the firm of Cohen and Schwartz a worthless check for $1,500 for a new car. The car had been recovered but it was thought best to bring the young man to book for such car. Mr. Schwartz phoned to Cohen to go to the drug store and talk to the young man he had seen enter there, while he called the officers. This Cohen did.
In the meantime, the janitor at the Burlington depot was sweeping the tile floor of the waiting room and gave a jab at a hand bag on the floor with his brush. The bag didn’t respond to the jab, which led the janitor to pick it up. Finding it extremely heavy and giving off a peculiar jingle, he called the attention of Will Wrench. They took it into the women’s lounge after the nervous looking young man, who seemed to belong to it, went up town. They looked inside and saw the huge pile of silver dollars and knew where it came from. (Grandfather had earlier received a telegraphed message from the Bostwick depot telling of the robbery.) They put in a call for the officers but the young man was already under arrest and on the way to jail on the check charge.
He gave the name of Herbert Holmes but denied knowing anything about the bank robbery. Policeman Dugger insisted he must know something about it for they had the money he left at the depot, to which he replied, “Well, I didn’t get all of it.”
He had an automatic revolver in his hip pocket and numerous papers and letters. Noticing his shirt front bulging a bit at the waist line, the police pulled out about $800 in paper money. In a few minutes young Holmes was ready to confess, and did so, saying he robbed the Bostwick bank on the morning of Sept. 20, 1924, and that he was 21 years of age. He signed the confession in the presence of the officers.
Out of $1,233 in the bank haul, all but $1.17 was recovered.
Young Holmes said he made his get away from the bank on foot, spending Saturday night in a corn field and Sunday in a granary on a farm northwest of Superior. It was there he left the shotgun he took from the bank. He came in town during Sunday night to catch the east bound Burlington passenger for St. Louis, but missed it by a few minutes as he was afoot and carrying the heavy bag of silver besides a suit case. He was seen on the streets shortly after the 2:45 a.m. train went through.
About 10 days ago, Holmes called on Cohen and Schwartz and wanted to buy a car. They wanted to sell him a used Dodge but he said no, he wanted something good as he had the money with which to buy it. They arranged to sell him a Willys-Knight, and he accompanied them to Omaha and drove it down. He wrote a check for $1,500 in payment on the Farmers State Bank of Superior and took the car.
On being questioned if he had the money to cover the check, he told Cohen he was a deputy sheriff and knew what it meant to try to pass a worthless check and then exhibited a deputy sheriff’s badge. He came back the following day to have the car gone over and properly greased and oiled. In the meantime, Cohen had ascertained there was no money in the bank to cover the check. Young Holmes then produced a savings bank book showing he had more than $1,500 in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bank and also a bank book on a Steubenville, Ohio, bank, showing a deposit of $1,700 to his credit. He said he had sent for the money in the Ohio bank to be sent to the Farmers Bank here to cover his check, but his father stopped it.
A message was sent to his father who replied he would not send the money. Holmes had papers showing he had been in the employ of an eastern railroad and that the company had laid him off temporarily, also that his savings account was the result of the company withholding a certain amount each month from his wages as fireman on the Pennsylvania and Ohio road.
The attempted highway man and desperado is only 21 years of age, if he is that old. His looks indicate not more than 19 or 20. He goes quite well dressed, and is reported to come from a good family. His father is well-to-do and well respected. The fact that his father would not allow him to withdraw his savings indicates he is under 21 years of age.
He was ordered held by the police by Cohen pending a reply from his father. He would probably have been turned loose had it not been for the money found on his person, and the hand bag of silver at the depot. He had purchased a ticket from Cashier Wrench for St. Louis, but must have paid for it from his own money. The ticket could not be found in any of his belongings and no one knows what went with it.
On the way to Nelson, he asked rational questions and told the officers he went to Bostwick Thursday and bought a supply of canned goods and bread and went into a cornfield to be near the scene of his bank robbing stunt. That night he went to the bank and gained entrance, but lacked the nerve to stay and do the robbing until the next night.
He took the storm coat belonging to Mr. Kirkbride, also his shotgun out of the bank the first night. It was this coat he wore to cover up his clothes when he robbed the bank Saturday morning.
He had the coat and handkerchief he used for a mask in his suit case when the officers investigated Monday. They put the coat on him, tied the mask on, then asked Mr. Kirkbride if he presented the same appearance of the man that held him up. The banker exclaimed he did and there was no doubt in his mind that he was the chap. This test was made to disprove the story Holmes put up of an accomplice, whom he claimed did the work. He said the fellow was from Salt Lake City, but this was a fake as he finally admitted in his confession.
Holmes had a leather belt and pistol holster, a pair of extra good handcuffs and a deputy sheriff’s badge in his suitcase, also a number of letters and papers which may later connect him with some other lawlessness. It has been developed that he sold a mortgaged car in Ohio before coming here.
As is quite usual in cases of a youth going wrong in this way, a girl appears in the case. It seems he had become acquainted with a girl from Newton, Kansas, and wanted to show her a good time. To do so, a good car seemed much to his liking.
When his money failed to materialize as he claimed it should, he then began studying out a way to get it by robbing a bank. The Bostwick bank seemed most feasible.
That he is a novice there is little doubt. Every story he told flattened out and he double-crossed himself in many of them.
He said while he was hiding in the potato patch back of the bank Saturday morning, several men passed within a few feet of him and one boy looked right at him. It was here, his gun dropped from the hostler and he missed it when he went over the fence, but did not dare go back for it. He saw several men looking for him during the day, but the dogs did not get near enough to him that he could hear them. He expected the dogs to track him but they lost the scent at the river bridge. He followed the banks of the river east and kept out of the way until dark when he went back and got the bag of silver.
The shotgun he took from the bank was found where he said he put it Sunday, in the Grissell barn northwest of town. He spent most of the day in the barn but none of the family saw or heard him.
The bag of silver, which he tossed in a patch of weeds back of the bank, was right where he left it when he went back to get it at night. He said somebody had mowed the weeds during the day and he expected they had found his bootty. To his surprise, he put his hand right on the bag of silver and walked away with it.
It is possible this young man’s original intentions were all right, and he thought himself entitled to the savings it seems he must have had in the banks according to the deposit books he had.
Had he been able to have gotten away with the swag from the bank, he would have been well on the way of a life of wrongdoing. He will now have plenty of time to meditate as he will receive a sentence this term of court. We hope this terrible misstep of this apparently decent young man, may serve as a lesson to other boys and young men.
Reader Comments(0)