Southwest City Bank Robbery Number Three

   Last week I wrote about the 1932 robbery of the Cornerstone Bank in Southwest City, Missouri, and I mentioned that I had previously written about Bill Doolin's 1894 bank robbery in Southwest City. The Cornerstone was robbed again in 1955. In fact, I think it was the same bank in all three instances, although I don't believe it was called the Cornerstone in 1894.
   The third Southwest City bank holdup occurred on February 16, 1955, when three men entered the bank about eleven o'clock in the morning armed with .45 caliber revolvers. One bandit approached assistant cashier James Cantrell's window while the other two robbers herded four other employees and three customers to the rear of the bank and made them lie down. Cantrell was ordered to open the vault, but he claimed he couldn't because it was a time lock. Cantrell was then taken to the rear of the room and exchanged for a second assistant cashier, who opened the lock after the gang threatened to shoot him. The bandits, none of whom wore masks, made off with about $50,000. They were driving a 1953 or 1954 black four-door sedan and headed north toward Joplin.
   On February 18, just two days after the holdup, the FBI announced the arrest of two men in connection with the robbery. Glen Howard Potter, 53, was arrested on the night of the 17th on his farm near Southwest City, and Jack Cope, 29, was taken into custody on his farm near Delmar, Arkansas, on the morning of the 18th. Over $12,000 in loot was recovered at the time of Cope's arrest, and over $3,000 was found at the Potter place. Cope was charged as an actual participant in the robbery, and Potter was charged with knowingly receiving stolen property. Also named as suspects in the robbery but not yet arrested were Potter's brother, William Budshaw Potter, 49; a man tentatively identified as Frank Haley; and Glen Potter's daughter-in-law, Margaret Potter, 23. She had allegedly received about $1,300 of the loot. Glen Potter was from Chicago, but he had recently purchased the McDonald County farm. William Potter and Haley were still at large and were considered armed and dangerous.
   The next day, February 19, it was announced that both fugitives had been taken into custody, and that $45,000 of the stolen money had now been recovered. About $12,500 was found hidden under a house in Wheatfield, Indiana, where Ray Louis Curtis, 28, (alias Frank Haley) was arrested. William Potter of Thayer, Missouri, was arrested near the same time as Curtis, and another $13,000 was found on his farm. Margaret Potter was arrested about the same time as William Potter and Curtis, after Glen Potter admitted giving some of the loot to her.

   All five defendants went to trial in Kansas City in June 1955, and all five pleaded guilty to an assortment of charges. As the three principals in the robbery, William Potter was sentenced to 32 years in prison, Cope was sentenced to 32 years, and Curtis was sentenced to 12 1/2 years. Glen Potter got two years for receiving stolen property, while young Mrs. Potter's sentencing was deferred. Later the same year, she received a suspended three-year term and was placed on probation.

Another Southwest City Bank Robbery

   I wrote about the 1894 robbery of the Southwest City Bank by Bill Doolin and his gang in my book Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents and also had an article published about the event in Wild West Magazine, but the little town in the extreme southwest corner of Missouri has had at least two other bank robberies in its history.
   On December 16, 1932, about two o'clock in the afternoon, three heavily armed men came into the Cornerstone Bank in Southwest City, forced the cashier and his assistant into the vault, and locked it. The robbers, one of whom wore dark glasses while the other two were unmasked, then looted the tills of slightly over $600 before making their escape in a Desoto sedan. They were last seen heading west toward Grove, Oklahoma, but a pursuing posse lost track of the bandits and called off the chase.
   A week or so later, Everett Bailey of Joplin was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Southwest City holdup, and on December 26, he gave a written confession implicating himself and four other men in the crime. The other four were George Meyers, former manager and operator of the telephone exchange at Noel; Henry Stange, Joplin building contractor; 24-year-old Glen Rowe of Joplin; and Budge Duvall, also of Joplin. The next day, Meyers was arrested and lodged in jail at Pineville, where Bailey was already cooling his heels. Stange was taken into custody the same day and placed in the Newton County Jail at Neosho. Rowe and Duvall were captured near Riverton, Kansas, on December 28 and taken to the Joplin City Jail. Frank Rowe, Glen's father, was also arrested on suspicion. Five of the suspects signed confessions, with only Stange refusing to do so. According to the various confessions, Bailey and Duvall staged the actual robbery, while Glen Rowe waited in the getaway car. Meyers's home was used a staging point for the robbery, and the stick-up men returned there after the robbery. They ditched the bandit vehicle at the Meyers place and were driven to Joplin by Meyers. Stange and the elder Rowe allegedly helped plan the caper.
   On December 29, the suspects appeared in McDonald County Court, where the guilty pleas of Glen Rowe, Duvall, Meyers, and Bailey were accepted. Duvall, Rowe, and Meyers were sentenced to 25 years in the state pen, while Bailey, as the first to confess and the one who implicated the rest of the gang, got only 20 years. Stange pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial. Either Frank Rowe never confessed to begin with, as was previously reported, or else he recanted his confession, because he also pleaded not guilty and sought a trial. However, I can find no later information about his involvement in the crime or about a subsequent trial; so, I think the case against him must have been dropped, since he did not participate in or help plan the heist but only had knowledge of it.
   At his trial in early May 1933, Henry Stange was found guilty of being an accessory before the fact to the robbery, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
   Next week, I might write about the third Southwest City bank robbery.

Niangua Fires and Bank Robbery

   A reader recently contacted me to ask whether I knew anything about Niangua (Webster County, MO). He said he'd heard about a bank robbery that took place there back in what might be called the heyday of bank robberies--the 1920s and 1930s. I told him that, having grown up in the Springfield area, I was familiar somewhat with Niangua and that my high school (Fair Grove) even used to play Niangua in basketball once in a while. But I really didn't know anything at all about the history of the place. So, I decided to see what I could find out.
   The first thing I learned was that Niangua was established in 1870 as a station along the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and was named after the nearby Niangua River. Some sources say the place was originally called Miteomah, but this is not entirely accurate, because in 1874, Niangua was listed as a railroad station about six miles northeast of Marshfield and Miteomah as a post office about five miles northeast of Marshfield in Campbell's 1874 Gazetteer of Missouri. Apparently the post office later changed its name to Niangua, and the two places more or less merged.
   Beyond these basic facts about Niangua's very early days, I also learned that not only did Niangua have a bank robbery, as the reader informed me, but it has also had at least three destructive fires of note in its history.
   The first significant fire occurred on the night of May 23, 1891, when Niangua was "almost entirely destroyed by fire," according to the Marshfield Chronicle. The fire started in the Odd Fellows Hall between 11 p.m. and midnight, and by the time the blaze was discovered it had "gained such headway" that it was impossible to bring it under control. In addition to the Odd Fellows Hall, the fire destroyed the post office, the train depot, and at least two businesses, which comprised four buildings. Total loss was estimated at $10,000 or more, which was a pretty good sum in 1891.
   On February 27, 1917, another big fire visited Niangua, completely destroying the town's main mercantile business, including a warehouse in addition to the main store. The buildings and the stock of goods lost were valued at about $16,000. Cause of the fire was not definitely known, but, based on the fact that witnesses had seen a strange car backed up to the store not long before the fire broke out and that certain undamaged goods were found outside the store where they had apparently been dropped, investigators conjectured that the place had been robbed and the fire had been deliberately started to try to cover up the crime.
   Then on Saturday, May 17, 1941, three Niangua businesses were destroyed in what was called a "blast-blaze." An acetylene torch exploded in a garage, and the resulting fire raged for an hour and a half, spreading to two other businesses. In addition to the garage, a barber shop and a two-story drugstore were reduced to ashes. Since Niangua had no fire department at the time, a bucket brigade fought the blaze futilely until the flames reached an alley, where they burned themselves out. Total loss was estimated at $5,000 or more, and none of the businesses had insurance.
   As for the bank robbery, it happened on October 31, 1928, but it was more than a Halloween prank. Two young men entered the Bank of Niangua shortly before closing time and, flourishing handguns, forced the cashier and his wife to help sack up all the silver and currency they could find in the drawers. The culprits made off with almost $4,000, escaping by automobile.
   The cashier and his wife, who was the assistant cashier, gave authorities good descriptions of both bandits, and lawmen were quickly on their trail. Within 24 hours, E. M. Bumgarner, 35, of near Northview was arrested as the owner of the car that was identified as the getaway vehicle, and Louis Petty, whom the cashier had tentatively identified as one of the holdup men, was arrested while working in a cornfield on his farm west of Marshfield. Both Bumgarner and Petty had criminal records, with Petty, 25, having served two stints in the Missouri State Penitentiary.
   Both suspects denied involvement in the Niangua bank robbery at first, but within a few days Petty broke down and gave a full confession, implicating both E. M." Jack" Bumgarner and Lawrence Bumgarner (a nephew of Jack). Petty said Lawrence, 24, was the other man who entered the bank with him. Lawrence was arrested on suspicion based on Petty's story, but he was soon declared innocent and released. Petty and Jack Bumgarner were given preliminary hearings, and both were bound over for trial. They were retained in jail when they were unable to make bail. Later, Lawrence Bumgarner was rearrested, and Petty's brother Roy was also arrested on suspicion of involvement in the robbery.
   In mid-December, Petty and Jack Bumgarner escaped from the Webster County Jail at Marshfield, but they were soon recaptured. All four defendants went on trial in January 1929. Louis Petty was convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison after he refused a plea deal that would have given him 45 years. Lawrence Bumgarner pled guilty and received 25 years. Roy Petty, charged with receiving part of the loot, was given a 3-year sentence. Jack Bumgarner was granted a change of venue to Pulaski County, and I have not yet learned the outcome of his case.

Schell City, Missouri

   As someone who has lived in southwest Missouri almost all my life and traveled throughout the region quite a bit, I have visited a lot of different communities in the Ozarks, if only to pass through them on the way to somewhere else. However, there are still a few places in this region that I've never been, and I think Schell City in northeast Vernon County is one of them. I have visited the Osage Village Historic Site, which is less than ten miles west of Schell City, but I believe that's about as close as I've ever gotten. Actually, Schell City is not technically in the Ozarks, but it's close enough that I still consider it more or less home territory. Schell City is still a going little town today, but its heyday, like that of a lot of other small rural towns in America, has long since come and gone.
   The first settlers in the Schell City area date to pre-Civil War days, but the village of Schell City was not established until 1871, when it was laid out by the Schell City Town Company as a stop on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (usually called the M., K. and T or Katy). One of the members of the town company was Augustus Schell, and the place was named after him.
   One day in June of 1871, just a month or two after Schell City had been platted, "seven car loads of excursionists," numbering about 400, left Sedalia by rail to visit the new village. The tourists enjoyed a picnic outing on the banks of the Osage River a couple of miles north of the fledgling community. Several members of the Schell City Town Company also had an interest in the Katy Railroad, and the main purpose of the excursion was to try to interest the tourists, who made the trip by special invitation of the railroad, in buying lots in the new town.
   How many of the Sedalia tourists purchased lots in Schell City is unknown, but the new community did grow rapidly. By 1874, Schell City had six stores, a hotel, a couple of other businesses, and a population of about 200. It was incorporated as a village by the county court in 1879, and by 1880, only nine years after its formation, the village boasted a population of almost 700 people.
   1885 was a bad year for Schell City. Between March and August, the town suffered three significant fires, although the last one, on August 3, is the only one that might be called devastating. A description of the damage, written the next day by a Schell City correspondent to a Sedalia newspaper, not only gives you an idea of the extent of the damage but also indicates that the place was quite a vibrant little town, with numerous businesses, at the time of the fire. Among the buildings that were either destroyed or sustained considerable damage were three grocery stores, two hardware stores, one drugstore, one stationery store, and the post office. At least nine other buildings, unidentified as to the type of business they supported, were also heavily damaged.
   Schell City, however, recovered from the fire, and by 1890 its population stood at approximately 850. The population of the place has trended generally downward ever since it hit that high-water mark to the point that Schell City now has fewer than 250 residents. However, the town still has at least one church, a couple of eating places, a post office, and a couple of other businesses. Probably its main concern, though, is its school, Northeast Vernon County School District, which resulted from the consolidation of Schell City Schools and Walker Schools in the 1990s. As long as the town has its school, it will probably survive and maybe even thrive, but if it ever loses its school, that will probably sound the death knell for the community, as has happened in so many other tiny villages across the Ozarks and all across the country, in fact.