Making Adams County Bandit Proof

In 1924 Illinois had forty percent
of the bank robberies in the United States. It took a bank robbery in broad
daylight by unmasked men at the Fowler Bank fifteen miles north of Quincy to
demonstrate that Adams County was not excluded from the troubles that plagued
the Illinois banking industry in 1925.

In the 1870’s Quincy was the site
of the largest bank heist in the country when $250,000 was stolen from the
First National Bank. $85,000 in cash was carried away in carpet bags, the rest
being stocks and bonds and bearer notes. Since then, the area had been spared
major bank robberies. Quincy Sheriff Grubb thought that was due, at least in
part, to our lack of paved roads allowing criminals a quick escape to Chicago,
Kansas City or St. Louis. But things changed in 1925.

Far from being an individual
operation, most bank-robbing gangs were highly organized. In 1925, bank robbers
stole more money than the US government realized from taxation, roughly
$3,800,000,000. Being a bank teller in
Illinois was a dangerous occupation. And robbery was expensive to borrowers.
Bankers, to balance their red ink, charged six dollars per thousand as a
premium against loss from robberies. In 1924, our neighbor state, Iowa, took
steps to correct a similar situation and lowered their loss premium from six
dollars per thousand to one dollar, a considerable savings to both banker and
customer.

In April of 1925, the bankers of
Adams County, including all the Quincy banks plus sixteen banks from small surrounding
towns, met to organize protection for their facilities under the guidance of
the Illinois Bankers Association. The IBA had hired R.C. Saunders, former Des
Moines, Iowa chief of police to create and implement a plan. The IBA then
embarked on a county-by-county tour of Illinois seeking to set up protective
forces and integrate them into a statewide network.

In the fall of 1925, sixteen
Illinois bank robberies were in villages with a population under 800 people,
and a correspondingly small police force. Iowa had 56 bank robberies in 1920.
After Governor Harding implemented the Iowa Bankers Protective League using
Saunders’ plan, that number fell to eight robberies in 1924, with three being
successful.

The IBA plan was organized under
the sheriff’s office, with the community choosing and deputizing upstanding citizens as town
guards. Each guard was supplied with a .45 caliber revolver and a Krag carbine
rifle, the brand approved by the US government. The men were trained in the use
of the firearms and required to complete target practice each month. In
addition, the banks would post in their window a red card stating: “$1,000 will
be paid for the capture or taking of any robber or robbers, burglar or
burglars, Dead or Alive!”

Along with the three to five local
guards, all area telephone operators were trained to sound the alarm when
notified and provided with the contact numbers of other local sheriff’s and
agencies to immediately cast a net to catch the criminals. All railroad ticket takers or toll collectors
were likewise trained.

Under the plan, an agreement was
forged to allow area communities to send their vagrants to Quincy to be lodged
in the workhouse, with the fee for their maintenance paid by the referring locality.
It was common practice for gangs to send an advance man to the town, posing as
a vagrant while scouting the bank, likely escape routes and gathering
information. R. C. Saunders had a sketch
found in a robber’s car in Albian, Illinois, drawn by a “tramp.” It showed the
business section of Albian, the interior and exterior of the bank, the number
of officers on duty, the road by which to arrive and the one by which to
depart, the possible sum to be had and even a tentative day for the robbery. It
was Saunders’ opinion that if a vagrant knew he had to stay away from Adams
County, or break rocks in the Quincy workhouse, he would choose to go
elsewhere.

The Fowler bank job in May of 1925
netted the robbers about $2,000 in cash and $45,000 in notes. Two men entered
the bank, pulling guns on the two employees and emptying the cash drawer. The
safe was closed, but not locked and quickly emptied. About this point, another
bank customer, Gale Tout, manager of a lumber yard, entered the bank with $95
cash in hand to be deposited. It took him a minute to register the drawn
pistols pointed at him. He soon had his hands over his head, cash still in one
of them. This occasioned some dispute between the robbers, according to Mr.
Tout, with the older one saying, “Aw let the poor devil keep his money. It’s
not insured and the banks’ money is.”
Soon the customer, the cashier and the bank president and the $95 were
locked in the vault. The robbers joined a third man waiting in the auto outside
and sped away.

They used a car stolen in Quincy as
the getaway vehicle and drove it to a little-used lane near Mendon where another
car was parked. They were going fast enough to leave twenty feet of skid marks
as they stopped but still tarried long enough to remove the license plates from
the stolen auto before leaving. They also broke out the car’s rear window to be
able to fire freely at anyone pursuing them.

The three in the bank vault were
heard by a young man entering the bank, who quickly raised the alarm, and they
were freed. Since the bank protection
plan had not yet been implemented, the robbers made good their escape, and
although one man was later arrested in Kansas City, he was not extradited to
stand trial before he managed to post bail and disappear. The getaway driver
was sentenced for another robbery, but he escaped from his jail cell.

The Illinois IBA plan was
implemented and in May of 1926 there were 102 county banker’s federations, town
guard organizations in thirty-three counties and about 2500 armed guards.
Prison sentences had been increased for bank robbery and cooperation between
five states was helping in prosecutions. Thirty active bank robbers had been
sent to the penitentiary and losses reduced by half a million dollars.

Sources

“Bankers and Police are Working Out Plan to Check Bank
Robberies,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 9
October, 1925.

“Bankers Send Large Number to Meeting Here,”

Quincy, Daily Journal

, .28 May, 1926.

“Bankers will Make County Bandit Proof,

Quincy, Daily Journal

, 23 April, 1925.

“Bank Robberies in Illinois Cut,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 5 November, 1925.

“The Editor’s Telescope,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 18 May, 1925.

“Fowler Robbery Made
Big Stir Here,”

Quincy, Daily Journal

,
8 January, 1926.

“Plan to Stop Bank Holdups Now Recalled,”

Quincy, Daily Journal

, 15 May, 1925.

“Round the Town,”

Quincy,
Daily Journal

, 10 January, 1926.

“Shift in Cars Shows Bandits Were Prepared,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 15 May, 1925.

“Town Guard System if
Inaugurated by Bankers and Sheriff of Adams County,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 22 April,
1925.

“Unmasked Men Rob State Bank of Fowler in Broad Daylight and
Speed Away in Ford Car,”

Quincy, Daily

Journal,

15 May, 1925.

“Urging Town Guard System for Illinois,”

Quincy Daily Herald

, 24 November, 1925.