Depression Era Bank Robbery
From Prohibition into the beginning of the 1930s and the Great Depression a growing number of “public enemies,” as the gangsters and mob members were called, targeted banks throughout the Midwest. Names like Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson made the headlines of the daily newspapers. Banks during this time period were often viewed with suspicion, even by the everyday citizen who viewed some gangsters as heroes. During this same time there were lesser-known individuals who dared to copy their well-known counterparts. Such is the case with four men who executed a local daylight heist.
On Monday October 20, 1930, as the Mount Horeb Bank was doing business, a blue Nash sedan with white stripes, a Wisconsin license plate, and four men inside pulled up alongside the bank. They were there to rob the place. One man stayed inside the getaway car while the others headed for the bank’s Main Street entrance. Brandishing guns the three bandits entered the building’s marble and wood lobby at approximately 2:15 to 2:30 in the afternoon, with the leader of the group dressed in a light hat and blue suit and the others wearing overcoats. Jacob Lingard, the bank’s cashier was behind the counter. In a front office were the bank’s president, T.G. Lingard and Alfred Erickson, a caretaker of the Mount Horeb Golf Course. In a rear office were Ralph Dahle, assistant cashier, and Miss Marion Braudt bookkeeper.
Customers standing in the bank were John Vilberg, Ole Jelle, Ole Lukken, Miss Hazel Ryan, Miss Johanna Lingard, sister of two of the bank’s officers, and Tom Ayen. As the robbery was in progress, another customer, Ben Mavis, entered with a handful of currency to be exchanged for silver he was promptly ordered to the floor and the money removed from his hand.
Mr. Vilberg was one of the first people to realize that the place was being held up. “They came in guns in their hands,” he later told a newspaper reporter. “They said lay down; lay down there. The one that was leading was a tough mug, I tell you. That fellow would just as soon shoot a man as not. We laid down. I lifted my head to get a good look at the men, and to see just how they go about this business of robbing a bank, but one of them told me to lie still, and believe me I did.”
A strange man leaping over the railing at the cashier’s desk apprised the bank president and cashier, who were brothers, that a robbery was in progress. The robber pointed a gun at the Jacob Lingard the cashier and made him lie on the floor in the cage, next he told Tom and Al Erickson from the front office to come out and lie down with the cashier. After this the robber told Jacob to get up and took him to the vault and forced him to unlock the gate. After the robber scooped money from the safe and took bonds from the vault he told the cashier to lie down again.
Miss Braut and Mr. Dahle who had been working in the back office knew the bank was being robbed when they saw Mr. Lingard come out of his office with his hands in the air. The two ran for a supply room next to their office. One of the bandits saw them and came after them where they were then told to lie on the floor.
Jacob Lingard recalled later that as one of the bandits stooped over to scoop cash from the bank’s safe he had the opportunity to attack the robber but desisted, realizing that should he fail to incapacitate the robber at the first blow, shooting would most certainly follow and someone would be hurt.
Before the bandits made their getaway employees and the unfortunate customers were marched into the vault where they were locked in. As soon as the robbers exited the bank Jacob took out his key and reached through the fault gate bars to unlock it and put a call in to the vigilantes.
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The robbery had taken a mere five minutes and the bandits fled out the door clutching their loot to their chests. They rounded the corner to North Second Street and nearly plowed down Mrs. William Olson who was on her way to her husband’s restaurant two doors down from the bank on Main Street. As the robbers went running past, Mrs. Olson glanced into the banks windows and saw none of the bank’s employees at their customary positions. She then realized a robbery had taken place. “When those men came running right at me” she said, “I was scared, I knew as soon as I looked through the window that there had been a hold up.” “Everything happened so fast, and I was so scared when the leader of the bandits glared daggers at me that I hardly knew what was going on.”
The leader jumped into the driver’s seat according to Mrs. Olson, and the other two men followed him into the car. The leader of the group stepped on the starter of the car, and when the motor didn’t start right away he began swearing. Finally the motor started and the car jumped back from the curb, it then sped around the corner and headed east on Main Street.
Mrs. Olson turned around and yelled for the assistant marshal and then went screaming to her husband’s restaurant. Mr. Olson telephoned to the sheriff’s office at Madison and then notified surrounding towns of the robbery and giving a description of the car.
Officials in three states, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa engaged in a manhunt for the four who made off with $23,760.74 of the bank’s assets. The loot consisted of $6,553,74 in cash and $17,205 in securities. The escape route of the bandit’s was traced to Mineral Point by Leighton Bickel, county traffic officer, and Claire Arneson, Blue Mounds, who pieced together the car’s route by inquiring of highway patrolmen and filling station employees. From Mount Horeb the car went west on 18 about three miles to highway F to Hollandale and then west on highway 39 which leads to Mineral Point. Officer Bickel telephoned to authorities at Freeport and Rockford, Illinois, Dubuque, Iowa, and Lancaster to watch for the car, but no further trace of the vehicle was uncovered.
One of the robbers was later killed in Minneapolis, and one, Stanley Ford, was brought to trial on February 27, 1931, in Madison and was sentenced by Judge S.B. Schein to twenty-five years in the State’s prison.
In 1932, just two years after the robbery, the Mt. Horeb Bank itself became the victim of the Great Depression when it became insolvent and failed. Stockholders who not only lost their stock were required to liquidate other assets, in the amount of half the value of their stock, for a fund to protect depositors. The depositors received 75 cents on the dollar. Many who thought they were financially set for life lost their savings. In 1942 the village of Mt. Horeb bought the 1924 bank for use as a municipal building
Unusual Bank Burglar Protection
Although, to our knowledge, it was not deployed during the October 1930 robbery, the Mount Horeb Bank had an unusual system to handle potential bank robbers. Installed under the teller’s windows was a system of pipes that led to small round vents below each window. These pipes contained a gas, reportedly capable of overwhelming any potential bandit. In case of a robbery, a button hidden behind the counter, or on the floor could release the gas. During the last major remodeling of the Mt. Horeb Municipal Building these early burglar protection devices were added to the Historical Society’s museum collections.
It is believed that this 1924 burglar alarm never sounded the day of the robbery. It is now part of the Mount Horeb Area Museum collections.