The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-10-22
BOLD THIEVES MAKE RAID
ON CHICAGO P0ST0FFICE
They Succeed In Getting Away With $746IO
Worth of Postage Stamps.
!unnaed For 800 Feet Underground And Then Drilled Through the
Steel Floor of the Vault

Chicago. Oct. 21.-The most daring
and ingenious robbery Of a public IN
sGtution ever perpetrated IN Chicago
was successfully accomplished at some
time between Saturday night and this
morning, when postage stamps to the
value OF $74.610 we've abstracted from
the stamp vault of the Chicago post
Office by operators who bored pass
age through a steel door in order to
reach their plumber.
II they had calculated their distance
six feet TO the west from the point
where they worked they undoubtedly
would have carried off nearly $4,000
in cash and $500, OC0 in stamps.
The burglars plan of operations was
almost identical with that followed by
she robbery IF the vault of the Selby
sSmeltinR Compr ny near San Francisco
Several months ago.
The burglars secured entrance under
the building, and by digging trenches
and tuuneling through cross walls
gained "A point Immediately under the
vault. The steel sheets forming the
floor of the iron room were bored.
hole Of sufficient size to admit the body
Of man was made and through this
one of the robbers passed the plumber
10 one or more accOmplices below
Loaded Plumber Into Wagon.
The plumber was carried nearly 200
feet through the trench under the
building and then loaded into a wagon
that was waiting in an alley behind
the building. The police say that a
mail wagon may have been used, as
they say the presence of an ordinary
wagon in the rear of the postOifice
would probably have attracted atten-
ton.
The work Of forcing an entrance to
the vault had evidently been going for
ward with the greatest patience for
many days. 1t IS believed, however
that the intention Of the thieves had
been to enter the cashiers vault, in
which there was $4,000 in money. and
stamps valued at hundreds Of thou
sands OF dollars.
The bottom of the vault is of steel
half an inch thick. In this ninety-seven
holes were bored until space eighteen
inches square-just enough 20 allow the
entrance of a ma y s bOdy-had been so
weakened that it was possible to take
out the whole plate with little difficulty.
a dry goods box stood over the hole
thas rlade and concealed the work o.
the robbers while il was in progress.
when discovered today the finger
MARKS or one OF the burglars we're stil
disceruible on the dust of the box.
which he had pushed to one side.
SO carefully had the job been planned
that men working in other parts Of the
building had nOe the slightest inkling
of the daring robbery being worked al
most under their noses.
How Work Was Done.
The robbers drove up to the south
east sorner of the pOstofIice in n
wagon. the tracks of which could be
seen plainly today. The building is a
temporary affair. and the men had
only 70 open a little door to admi {
themselves under the flooring. TIC
reach the vault &c was necessary to
crawl about 300 feet over odds and ends
of board which Uttered the way. The
rot &c evidently had been carefully
studied. for a detective who went un-
der today without knowledge of loca-
items became lost and was nearly over
come by the foul odOTs before assist
ance reached him.
Having secured their plumber, the
robbers loaded it into the wagon.
drove across a vacant lot and turned