100 years ago in Whitman County: Bank robber busted by police in wheat field

A masked yeggman (safecracker) was cornered and arrested in a Whitman County wheat field after attempting to rob the Pine City State Bank.

John Casper, 24, was one of two men who broke into the bank before it opened. When cashier Henry Smith entered the bank, he encountered the men searching the tills and making preparations to blow the open the vault.

When they saw Smith, the yegg- men yelled, “Hands up!” Smith immediately complied, since both of the robbers had guns.

However, the robbers, caught in the act, “backed out of the door and fairly evaporated,” said Smith.

Smith immediately raised the alarm, and within minutes the townspeople of Pine City were on their trail. The armed townspeople tracked them to a 400-acre wheat field. They fired shots at the yeggmen, and one of them, Casper, dropped his gun and surrendered. The other man “sailed through thin air” into an adjoining wheat field and had not yet been apprehended.

Police later discovered that the Standard Hardware store in Plaza had been burglarized in the night, and police suspected the same two men. They were also suspected of bank robbery attempts in Rockford and Waverly a week before.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

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