Back in the Wild West era, bad guys had simpler names, like “Butch” and “Jake,” and that was enough to make them live forever in infamy. But in this more colorful era, we tend to dub our bank robbers with much quainter monikers. Lately, fearful Colorado tellers have dealt with the sound-bite-friendly shenanigans of the “Mad Hatter,” “Mr. Magoo” and, most recently, “Dumb and Dumber.”
It’s not so surprising that we lighten up their dirty deeds by turning them into mascots of sorts. There’s a long history – helped by Hollywood, of course – of romanticizing guys with guns in this part of the country, even the worst among them.
While the names evoke a chuckle, make no mistake: These lawbreakers are still playing a dangerous, often deadly, game and wreaking havoc on the poor folks brave enough to stand behind bank counters.
Especially this year. Colorado bank robberies are up 64 percent over 2004, according to the FBI. That’s bad news for sure.
But for people who live in and love the West, current events invite an irresistible urge to recall a long and colorful line of baddies known for knocking over financial institutions in a state that houses a government moneymaking factory and plenty of getaway space.
Why do they do it?
Because “that’s where the money is.”
At least according to a quote attributed to bank-robbing expert Willie “The Actor” Sutton, who maintained in his autobiography that he never uttered those words. “The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently felt a need to fill out his copy,” he said.
Be that as it may, plenty of bank robbers did know where the money was and their dirty deeds are part of what defines our notions of who we are today.
Who doesn’t know the story of the man who was born Robert Parker and ended up as the half of the duo portrayed handsomely by blue-eyed Paul Newman in the 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”?
Butch began his life on the run in Colorado after the June 14, 1889, stickup of the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, carried out with his pals Tom McCarty, Matt Warner and, probably, Harry “Sundance Kid” Longabaugh.
As two of the robbers watched the horses, two others strode into the bank at about noon, stuck up a teller and all four galloped out of town with an estimated $20,000.
Back then robbing banks was almost trendy, though not always as professional.
When George Law, Jim Shirley and “The Kid” Pierce, three amateurs, robbed the Bank of Meeker in northwest Colorado about 3 p.m. on Oct. 13, 1896, they got a lot more than they bargained for.
Gunshots inside the bank alerted citizens, who were armed and prepared when the trio exited the bank with hostages. A fusillade from townspeople tore into Shirley and Pierce, who fell dead. Law ran for cover but was hit twice and died an hour later.
A leg of gold
The most unusual “robbery” occurred at the U.S. Mint in Denver in 1920. Over a period of several months, Orville Harrington, a $4-a-day worker, stole an estimated $80,000 in gold by methodically secreting 53 7-inch-long bars in his hollow wooden leg.
Harrington was bagged by Secret Service agents, pleaded guilty to embezzlement and was given a 10-year sentence at Leavenworth, Kan.
Such criminal creativity had its rewards, and penalties. Henry Starr, for example, is credited with being the first bank robber to use a getaway car as his modus operandi during a life of holdups that covered 32 years and 21 banks.
Although he spent most of his un-banking career in Oklahoma and Kansas, Starr and his cohorts were nabbed in 1908 after robbing the bank in Amity, Colo., and he was sent up for 7 to 25 years at the state penitentiary in Cañon City. When he got out, he went on a tear in Oklahoma, holding up 14 banks in a six-month period.
He was gunned down robbing the People’s State Bank in Harrison, Ark., on Feb. 18, 1921, one in which a Buick was the getaway car, and died four days later.
Much of the money-grabbing lore centers around the U.S. Mint. Government and law-enforcement officials are loath to label one of the more famous incidents an actual robbery because the holdup men never got inside the fortresslike building at West Colfax Avenue and Delaware Street.
But they did make off with $200,000 in new $5 bills from a Federal Reserve truck parked at a loading dock on Dec. 18, 1922.
Three men exited a car next to the mint, shotguns ablaze, and killed a guard before making off with the loot. Eighteen days later, their car was found parked in a Capitol Hill garage, complete with the frozen body of what police suspected was one of the robbers.
In 1934, Denver police claimed that five men and two women were conspirators in the robbery but released no names because all were dead or already in prison. The robbery remains unsolved, although $80,000 of the stolen cash was later recovered near Minneapolis.
The Fleagle Gang
Made up of brothers William (“Jake”) and Ralph Fleagle, George Abshier and Howard Royston, the Fleagle Gang stuck up banks and trains for a cool $1 million in Kansas, Colorado, Oregon and California over a 10-
year period but their messiest operation took place in Lamar.
The gang held up the First National Bank in Lamar early in the afternoon on May 28, 1928, ultimately leaving four men dead in their wake. Gunfire broke out when bank president Amos Parrish shot Royston in the jaw and Jake Fleagle shot Parrish in the head, killing him instantly. John Parrish, the president’s son, ran to help his father and also was shot dead.
The gang grabbed the $220,000 it had collected and headed for the door, taking bank employees Everett Kessinger and Ed Lungren as hostages. They dropped Lungren off outside town but kept Kessinger on the running board of their Buick as a shield.
The gang headed for western Kansas, where they stopped at the home of Dr. W.W. Wineinger near Dighton to get aid for their wounded partner. Police later found Wineinger, bound, gagged and shot in the back. Days later, Kessinger’s body was found near Liberal, Kan., also shot to death.
A single fingerprint belonging to Jake Fleagle found by law-enforcement officials on the dead doctor’s auto led police to
Ralph Fleagle, living in Kankakee, Ill. He confessed all.
Ralph Fleagle, Abshier and Royston were hanged at the state penitentiary in Cañon City in July 1930 and Jake Fleagle was killed in a shootout with police in Missouri in October of the same year.
Treasure hunters still scour the land, searching for booty the gang is rumored to have buried.
Other mysteries remain, including some more recent.
It was a sensational caper that came to be known as the “Father’s Day Massacre.”
On Sunday, June 16, 1991, a lone gunman talked and shot his way into the vault area of United Bank, 17th Avenue and Broadway. Four unarmed guards were shot to death.
Police arrested James King, a former Denver police sergeant and security guard at the bank, but he was acquitted after testifying on his own behalf and swearing that he hadn’t killed the guards or robbed the bank. Jurors cited “insufficient evidence.”
No one else has ever been charged, nor has the $200,000 the robber stole turned up.
But these days of DNA-inspired investigations, video surveillance equipment and better-
trained law enforcement forces, police have a better chance of nabbing their money-grabbing prey, especially when their prey make it kinda easy for them.
Like Dumb and Dumber, the two Australian fellows, Luke Carroll and Anthony Prince, who stuck up the WestStar Bank in Vail with a BB gun on March 21 and escaped with $132,000.
Unfortunately, the pair paused at Denver International Airport, where they planned to take a one-way flight to Mexico, to have their photos snapped displaying fistfuls of their ill-
gotten gains.
They were arrested at the airport by FBI agents after a Denver detective recognized the pair from a flier, complete with their photos.
Staff writer Dick Kreck can be reached at 303-820-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
