Bank Robber Outwitted by Local Quick Thinking
A lone gunman attempted to rob the Whitman County National Bank, only to be tackled by the cashier and disarmed by local merchants.
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 Whitman County National bank of Rosalia was held up by a lone robber, who followed Cashier F. J. Wilmer into the bank during the noon hour, when the doors are locked. Mr. Wilmer, under menace of a gun, was in the act of unlocking the vault door, when F. B. Goldsworthy, bookkeeper for a hardware store next door, who had a key to the bank, came in at the front door, in company with Clarence Graham, the assistant cashier. When the robber turned his gun on Goldsworthy and Graham, Mr. Wilmer grabbed him from behind and held his arms pinioned to his sides until Goldsworthy and Graham could run around behind the counter and disarm him. The holdup said his name was Ferguson.
“Mr. Wilmer grabbed him from behind and held his arms pinioned to his sides until Goldsworthy and Graham could run around behind the counter and disarm him.”
The dramatic intervention of neighbors to thwart a crime reflects a time when small-town banks relied as much on the vigilance of the hardware store bookkeeper next door as on any security system. Today, bank security has evolved from human intervention to sophisticated digital and surveillance measures, though the 'community watch' spirit persists in rural Washington.
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