The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1906-01-19
Police Attacked and Demolish-
cd Their Underground Den.
THEN THEY FLEW THE CITY.
Sons of Business Men and Others
Meet Nightly to Read Dime Novels
and Play Cards.
From Mondays Daily.

FROM Mondays Daily.
THE Bloody Six" gang of boys
which has been going under this start
ling name, has disappeared from the
city, following the breaking up of their
rendezvous by the police Saturday, The
existence of the band only became known
recently, when the parents of some of
the boys wondered where they spent
their evenings and commenced an inves-
tigation. The police were called upon to
asst, and spent several days last week
or the trail, but it was not until Friday
that the secret meeting place of the
band was located.
A cave or underground meeting place
had been prepared with great care and
much secrecy. In order to enter it, one
had to scrape the dirt away and lift a
trap door, near the river bank, north of
the old Great Western passenger depot.
BY letting oneself down through the
opening twenty inches square, he would
find himself at the end of tunnel. At
the other end of the tunnel was door,
barred with a rail. The only way to get
through the door when the "Bloody Six"
were within was to give the pass word,
which was "Stand BY the Jug" If this
was given properly, the visitor was adj
mitted into an underground room eight
or ten feet square, which had been dug
out of the clay This was rooted over
with doors of old freight cars, boards,
ETC., with tin laid across the top to keep
the moisture out, dirt piled on this, and
then the whole covered with brush. A
person might 90 within few feet of the
place and never mistrust that band
with such a fearsome name lurked be-
meath the ground.
In the room, which was the nightly
meeting place of the boys, were a stove,
a lamp, some benches, pack of cards,
dime novels, etc. There the members
of the band persued such yellow backed
volumes as "Red- Handed Mike" 'One-
Eyed Bill, the Terror of the West" ''The
Bloody Gum-Drop," ''Old Sleuth," etc.
Boys that had asked permission to go to
the theatre or other innocent places
came to this place instead and spent
their evenings there. Several boys not
of hn
visitors to the place, having been sup
piled with the password
When the police discovered the place,
they gave the boys until Saturday to de-
stroy it, but as the boys did not do this,
the officers broke in the roof Saturday.
That night the 'Bloody Six" met and
consigned the ruins of their trysting
place to the flames. Last night most of
the members and one or two other boys,
six in all, SLEW the COOP" They con-
cluded, from the literature that they had
been reading, that Mankato was alto
gether too dull and quiet a place for
them. There were not enough Indians
and desperadoes here to make it excit-
ing, so they caught freight train 60
ing north on the Omaha road at $3.50
p. m and went to st. Paul. What will
next become of them is not known, but
if history repeats itself they will soon
come home meekly asking to be restored
into the good graces of their parents,
ready to be forgiven and fogged,
if their parents are so inclined.
Several of the parents reported the
flight of their sons to the police this
morning. The boys range in age from
fourteen to eighteen years, and several
of them are the sons of well known bus
mess men. 1t is said that they defied
the public and the police. One of them
is a former inmate of the state training
cohool nt Radwip0