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The Great Bank Robbery, Part II

© Martine G. Bates

Last time, I introduced a story about Hartselle's Great Bank Robbery--one of the most memorable events in the town's history. This time, I'll tell you the rest of the story, then tell you when and where you can see an exciting re-enactment.

You might think that the action would come to an end quickly after the seven hostages were rounded up, tied up, and placed in the lobby of the bank. Instead, the action was just beginning. After everyone was removed from the streets, the robbers shot out the street lights in the area near the bank. Hearing the shots--ususally the way of alerting neighbors to a fire--several townspeople assumed that there was a fire in town.

The telephone operator, jumping up to spread the alarm, discovered that her switchboard wouldn't work. Dr. J.D. Johnston, a dentist who lived over a building across the street from the bank, grabbed his gun, ran to the window, and began to signal the rest of the town by firing shots of his own. He paused long enough to dress, then ran downstairs--still toting his gun.

At that point, Dr. Johnston became the only casualty in the affair. One of the robbers, probably reacting to the gun in the doctor's hands, shot and wounded the Good Samaritan in the thigh.

Johnston managed to make his way down the street and flag down a passing motorist, a medical doctor who drove the wounded man to nearby Decatur, operated on the wound, then drove back to Hartselle to offer help.

Accounts vary about how the safe was opened--nitroglycerin or dynamite--but the process clearly took considerable time and explosive force to accomplish. The hostages later described the thieves as "workmanlike" in their approach to the task. They reportedly drilled holes into the vault, packed them with Octagon soap and explosives, then detonated the charges. Witnesses counted eight explosions in all. The seven innocent men feared being killed in one of the blasts that sent the lock on the vault flying 50 feet away, blew the door 10 feet, and did considerable damage to the inside of the bank.

How was all of this accomplished in secret? It wasn't.

Since the first shots were fired at the streetlamps, townspeople had begun to gather outside the building. At least two armed robbers kept them a distance from the building, warning that anyone who approached would be shot. Fearing for the hostages as well as themselves, the crowd of one hundred onlookers kept their distance.