Bank of Hillsboro Robbed - 1934

By John Harvey

Under a headline of April 19, 1934, "Yeggmen Rob Hillsboro Bank", we found the following story that brought back other memories of the time. 

"Yeggmen entered the Bank of Hillsboro last Tuesday night and after destroying the vault and safe, escaped with several thousand dollars. 

"A hole was burned around the combination of the safe with a blow torch.  Improvised screens were used while the looting was in progress.  Unsuccessful attempts had been made on two previous occasions to enter the bank at which time the safe was so badly damaged.

"Officials are making every attempt to apprehend the thieves"

The thieves who pulled off this robbery were not caught, but a curious story later came to light.  One night, almost a year later, a small bank at Kingston on the South Georgia coast was robbed.  The robbers were not as lucky and were captured before they could get out of the state.

As the officers questioned the suspects, they realized they had in one of them quite a catch.  It turned out that he was an internationally known safecracker on whom officers had never been able to pin anything; but this time he had been caught "red-handed".

Seeing a long stay in prison ahead if he were taken back to any of the other states asking for his extradition, he decided to confess.

He and some friends on their way from New York to Florida had stopped off in Atlanta some months before, he said.  When they resumed their trip south, they had begun joking with one another as they rode along, and he had claimed that he could open any number of small banks, take the money and be gone before the people knew their bank had been robbed.  One of his companions challenged him to prove it.  Somewhere between Atlanta and Macon they had done just that.  The date he gave for the robbery coincided with that of the Hillsboro robbery.

On the night of the Kingston robbery he had been bragging in a Jacksonville bar and had been challenged again, so he and some friends had gone up to Kingston where they had not been so lucky.

After a few years in the Georgia State Prison he was paroled by the governor and lived on the Georgia coast until the charges against him in other states had expired, and then moved to Florida.

A recent story in one of the Atlanta papers told of his years as a safecracker and his parole by the Georgia governor.  It then said that after charges against him in other states had expired, he had moved to Tampa, Florida area where he made a good living owning and managing apartment houses.  The story ended that he died in 1975 with few of those renting his apartments knowing of his past.

Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005,  from copies of articles contained in the Monticello News. There articles were prepared by Mr. 
John Harvey and published in this newspaper during the 1970's and 1980's time frame. Some were under the title "Jasper Reflections", others "Bicentennial Bits".
Permission has been granted by Mr. Harvey for use of these very valuable and informative articles.

Copies of articles provided by Benny Hawthorne.