A Daylight Robbery
Last Friday about noon, Charlie Keeler from the City Clerk’s office room, saw two tramps go over toward the Stuart Hotel. They looked into the windows and then went north a little ways and stopped. They returned to the hotel and looked in again. One of the tramps went into the office while the other one went west past the city building. The man came out of the hotel and joined his companion.
Charlie went over to the hotel and asked Mrs. Hanson if she had been in the office. She replied that she had not. He then ask [sic] her to look in the money drawer. She did so and discovered that all the money was gone but a few pennies. Fortunately there had been less than a dollar in the drawer.
Mr. Keeler then went up town to look up some officers. He and Sam Kirlin found Clabe Wilson and the three went to the Rex Cafe where the men were found. They were taken before Justice Taylor, who released them but ordered them out of town. No one had seen the men take the money and it was thought best not to hold them.
From the August 4, 1922 Stuart Herald
You can see how close the hotel is to the depot. I wonder if Stuart had trouble with “tramps” often since they were right along While Pole Road and also the Rock Island Railroad.
My grandfather, Clabe Wilson, because the Stuart night watchman after Mr. Myers was killed during a bank robbery attempt.
2024: The Stuart Hotel has been renovated and is looking for renters.
It all seemed pretty mild until reading that Clabe replaced a watchman killed in a bank robbery attempt. Was he still working the farm at that point? I wonder what his duties entailed.
After WWI, farmers who’d followed government suggestions to buy land discovered that they were overextended when the bottom fell out of anything agricultural. I suspect Clabe’s father-in-law had encouraged him to follow his lead and they lost their farms. Clabe and Leora were in Stuart to start over. They felt fortunate to get a regular paycheck, but after the sixth little Wilson was born (Danny, 1923), they wanted back on a farm. That’s when they ended up as tenant farmers near Dexter, where Junior was born in 1925.
A good story including Clabe. How did you find it?
Thank you, GP. Old newspapers, especially from small towns! I found several clues to stories that way, and these days many libraries carry them on searchable sites.
👍
I remember listening to my grandparents tell stories about the tramps they encountered back in the 30’s. They ran a flooring business and had more than a few show up asking for work or look to steal something.
When the Wilson family moved into “Grandmother’s house” in Dexter (it was in foreclosure), it was bigger so tramps figured they could get something to eat so they’d stop by. One summer, my grandfather was the “tramp,” looking for a job helping with harvesting. A family took a chance on him, even letting him live with them during the week! https://joynealkidney.com/2019/07/12/hiring-out-during-the-great-depression/
My grandfather worked for the railroad and sometimes mentioned “hobos,” so I looked up the difference between a hobo and a tramp. Tramps are migratory nonworkers and hobos are men who traveled in search of work. I enjoyed the “Daylight Robbery” news story, Joy. Things were sure different in those days! 🙂
How interesting, Nancy. Because of White Pole Road (right along the railroad), it was easy for gangsters to get to small towns from Des Moines to rob banks. Stuart had talked about forming a Vigilance Committee because of it.
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