crime! a hold up, a chase!
A real hold up in "dime novel style" The bad men wore no masks. They knocked out poor "Shellie." Car loads of armed men gave chase north of town!
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Their path was apparently on the road north of the football field. They went down into the creek at that first bridge over Clear Creek. Mrs. Crisler called from the Purcell farm, which was east of the road nearing the top of the hill. They got to the railroad track and were walking north when the posse came into sight. They made a break for the river where near the "site" of the old oil well. They didn't make it. "Gleaming guns pointed at them from all directions."
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They were taken to town and a preliminary hearing held on the spot. They entered guilty please and apparently also on the spot got sentenced to the penitentiary. Off they went to the county jail to await transport.
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a little more
The big fire of 1920 had destroyed many of the businesses on the south side of the square. Shelenbarger's meat market was apparently elsewhere.
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The meat market where the robbery took place. This is a 1922 advertisement.
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Orville Jones called in to say he had seen the robbers going north on the railroad tracks.
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Justice of the Peace Milton H. Marble may have held the preliminary hearing and sentenced the robbers. He came to Table Rock in 1870; he was justice of the peace for many decades. He died in 1940 at age 101. His desk and many of his ledgers and law books can be seen at the Pioneer museum.
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The Purcell farm, from descendant Terry Hunt Korrell. Fred Muscheites, Sr., is throwing the ball to little Fred Muscheites, Jr. The latter grew up to be Pawnee County Clerk for many years.
January 14, 1918 Lincoln Star
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Home away from home for the gun-toting Mr. Jones of Falls City and his close-mouthed confederate.
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