The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1911-06-01
THREE Of ROBBERS
WHO BLEW BANK
TAKEN BY POLICE
Chief johnson of Sioux
Falls Locates the
Yeggmen
MONEY
Over $500 Taken From Bank
at Tea Found With
Burglars

Sioux Falls, S. D.-Within nine
hours after they had blown up and
robbed the safe in the Farmers Saw
ings bank at Tea, three OF the five
d~esperadoes who it is thought were
implicated in the robbery, were un-
der arrest and abiding in cells in
the city Jail at Sioux Falls. The bank
at Tea was robbed at 2:45 o'clock
Friday morning.
No news of the robbery reached
this cit! until 4:45 O'Clock yesterday
morning, because the robbers had
cut the telegraph and telephone
wires between this city and Tea and
the information received here came
by way o. Sioux City.
AS soon as Chief Johnston was no.
titled of the robbery he had his
! plans laid for the capture of the
gang and when he got a search war
rant ready he went to the rooming
house, run by Robert Pigley on
Eight street over Pigley's restaurant
and the Cascade saloon. He was ac-
companied on his raid by Deputy
Sheriffs Mortenson and Muchow and
upon pushing open the first door they
, came to, they discovered that they
had hit the right place. One man
resisted the chief in opening the door
and when it was finally forced open,
one of the gang tried to rush out,
Chief Johnston, however, was ready
for such an emergency and showing a
revolver in front of the fellow, he
forced him back in to the room,
where two other men were still in
bed, talking with the proprietor of
the. place.
i On the floor covered up with
clothes We're four r%evolvers. One a
Colts AZ, one a Harrington & Rich
ards So and the other two Colts SO
caliber.
Discover Part of Money.
The men were then hustled out of
bed and upon lifting the sheet a large
amount of goll. and silver coin was
discovered and this was taken by the
authorities. 1t was found upon
counting it to consist of twenty-five
$40 gold pieces, ten $40 gold pieces,
thirty-two silver dollars, twenty-five
half-dollars and ten cents in change.
The total amount thus found was
's642.6O and the major portion of the
booty has not yet been discovered.
Another search of the room in
which the fellows were found re-
vealed. a small package in which were
+, wrapped a number of long keys, such
as used by burglars and a small steel
file.
! The robbers entered the vault in
the bank at Tea by knocking a hole
through the wall, with sledges and
other heavy iron tools which they Sc
cured in the Great Northern hand
,car house which they had previously
= broken into. Once inside they made
short work of the safe and the noise
of the explosion aroused the entire
village, while the explosion wrecked
the safe and vault but did not do
much damage to the building or fix
lures.
Cashier E. j. Hoyer was Don on
the scene and in a conflict with the
robbers he shot and wounded one OF
them and the fellow was carried by
the other to a handcar standing on
the tracks and two men got away on
it. How the other three escaped
from the village no one knows.
A search of the bank building re-
vealed several bottles of nitro gly-
cerine and in an alligator grip was
found a small sack of caps used in
exploding nitro glycerine, a long
piece of fuse, a small jar of ~vasel:ne
and a small glass syringe which had
evidently been used for squirting the
explosive into the holes made for it
in the safe. Two shirts were also
found in the grip, one a new n and
the other had evidently been used be-
fore and bore the initials T. w. B.