Roslyn Bank Robbery Trial Ends in Hung Jury
A retelling of the 1890 bank heist that terrorized a Kittitas County mining town and triggered a high-stakes manhunt.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The jury in the case of Tom Kinsie, after being out about thirty-six hours, reported as utterly unable to agree, standing seven for conviction and five for acquittal. The Roslyn bank robbery, for which Cal Hale, Tom Kinsie, and George Zackary were arraigned and tried at Ellensburg, was the first crime of the kind committed in this state and was planned and executed on the same lines as similar robberies perpetrated by the Younger brothers and their gang at Northfield, Minnesota, over fifteen years ago. The robbery of Ben E. Snipes & Co.'s bank occurred on September 24, 1890. About 1:30 p.m., five heavily armed men, wearing white cowboy hats and dressed in rough garments, rode into the little coal mining town of Roslyn. They held up the cashier, F. E. Abernathy, at gunpoint and made off with over $7,000. As they fled, they fired on the town marshal and any citizens who dared to intervene. One man was shot in the leg, and others had narrow escapes. A saddle left on an abandoned pack horse provided the clue that eventually led a detective agency to arrest Hale, Kinsie, and the Zackarys in Gilliam County, Oregon.
“Every boy and man in town who owned or could get a gun started in pursuit at long range, and the robbers shortly disappeared on a trail over the mountains.”
The 1890 Roslyn bank robbery is remembered as a cinematic, mythic event in Washington's early statehood. Today, the town of Roslyn is perhaps better known for its preservation as a historic district and filming location, far removed from the days when bank bandits could hold an entire town hostage.
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