There’s more to the story about the building located at the 4-way stop, owned by Spence and Judy Elbert, now undergoing a facelift. Local historian David Stark reminded me of the bank robbery that occurred there during the Roarin’ Twenties.
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On Nov. 23, 1922, six armed men robbed the First National Bank of Gallatin, then located on the south side of the square. It was a sensational incident involving a large quantity of nitroglycerin. A newspaper account reads as follows:
“Laying down a regular army barrage, warning all comers to keep in the clear, robbers, believed to have been six of them, entered the First National Bank in Gallatin about 3 o’clock this morning, blew the big vault and safe, wounded John Chamberlain, veteran night officer, wrecked the bank interior, and escaped with about $4,100 in gold and currency and registered Liberty bonds in one of the most daring and deliberate bank robberies ever pulled off in this section of the state. The legmen using a full one hour’s time to complete the job.”
John Chamberlain, the night watchman who was wounded, was held a prisoner in the stairway, west of the bank, for one full hour. Mayor J.H. Tate and Frank A. Woodruff also received slight buck shot wounds from the shot gun barrage sent down the street by the bandits.
Most of the telephone and telegraph lines were cut during the melee. All of the gang escaped and were never identified.
This was the most sensational crime in Daviess County since the James boys killed Capt. John Sheets during the daytime robbery of the Daviess County Savings Association 53 years earlier. A newspaper account written at the time stated how “people no doubt heard the news of the robbery while sitting on the porch, listening to jazz on the radio, and maybe sipping bootleg whiskey out of a mason jar.”
Prohibition was in full force. Alcohol-related accidents had a whole different meaning back then. One unfortunate young man, Hammitt Ward, met a horrible death when his auto left a bridge on a road near Carlow the previous June. A newspaper account reads as follows:
“He was said to have been in an intoxicated condition and this was his third or fourth trip between the towns. Many are of the opinion that he was transporting ‘white corn’ from Carlow to Breckenridge. He drove a Ford car and instead of having a regular headlight he used a lantern to light his way. In leaving the wooden culvert the car turned turtle and in some manner Ward was pinned between the top of the seat and one of the bows at the top of the car. The drop from the bridge was about eight feet and the fire must have started from the lantern catching the leaking gasoline from the car.”
The writer of the Magill items for the newspaper had more to say about the accident:
“All indications were that local corn juice was mixed up in this affair and was directly responsible for this poor man’s death. And this leads us to believe that the county officers we now have whose duty it is to look after such matters, are entirely blind, and not only blind, but have lost all sense of smell, for there are a number of places near where this accident happened, that can be smelled for at least one-half a mile, so with at least five stills running full blast within one-half mile square and two more running within a mile of them, it shows plainly that the officers are in the condition above described, for we know they would not neglect their duty in matters of this kind, nor, would an officer send any man word two days ahead of time that he was going to search his premises, and to get his still covered up so he could not see it.”
Evidently, Sheriff J. Frank Gildow had his hands full trying to keep track of the bootleggers. During August of that same year (1922), the newspaper filed the following report:
“Last Thursday evening 27 sacks of sweetness, each weighing 100 pounds, were taken from the Paul E. Comstock Grocery Store at Carlow. A quantity of corn chop was also taken. These two ‘ingredients’ are used quite extensively in the manufacture of a certain beverage. A search was instituted by the officers and several premises were investigated. We understand six sacks of the sugar, also 200 pounds of the corn chop were found in the weeds on a farm east of Carlow Friday night. The amount of sugar and corn chop taken from the store would make enough ‘bug juice’ to make all the citizens of the whole county sit up and take notice.”
The account also described how law officers located a regular “French dug-out,” which had been the home of a still. The dug-out was fixed up in great shape, with good covering and underground entrance. Sheriff Gildow stated it reminded him of the “war hide-aways” in France. Parts of a dismantled still were evident in the dug-out.
Thirty-three barrels of mash is the total capture of wet goods by Sheriff J. Frank Gildow in three trips to the Carlow country that week, and the liquid refreshments were taken from three farms, all within a short distance of each other. “Upon seeing strange faces approaching, the custodian of the stills took across the country at a gait which would give a rabbit no look in whatever when it come to moving fast. Hills and hollows did not decrease his speed,” said Sheriff Gildow.
Then in October, 1922, samples of 33 barrels of bootleg hooch were brought back by Sheriff Gildow “…and the remainder of the joy juice was dumped and all the fish in Grand River may be on a spree.”
Yes, times were different when the old bank building on the south side of the Gallatin square was in its prime. What stories all these old buildings could share, if we’d only listen.