Bank robberies, by their nature, are hurried affairs. Someone stealing thousands of dollars needs to get in and out without being seen and as quickly as possible before police can arrive.

But in 1926, from five to 10 people entered a bank in Hartselle and stayed for three hours after numerous failed efforts to open the vault.

Stupid? Maybe. But they got away with it – and the equivalent of $260,000 in today’s money. To this day, after nearly 100 years, the so-called “Great Hartselle Bank Robbery” remains unsolved.

A historical marker was erected in front of the Hartselle Depot but it was temporarily taken down for road maintenance. It says: “In the early morning hours of Monday, March 15, 1926, bandits pulled off one of the most brazen bank robberies in the history of Alabama. In a well-planned operation, a band of five to ten men took around $15,000 in cash, coins and gold bars from the Bank of Hartselle.”

So incredulous were folks about the unsolved mystery, the bank robbery was once included in the newspaper feature Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

During the robbery, one man was shot in the leg but no one was killed. So how did the robbers do it?

The Great Hartselle Bank Robbery

At about 2 a.m. that Monday, some strangers drove a Packard into the quiet Morgan County town of Hartselle looking for a place to buy gas. Gas stations weren’t common at the time. Although more than half of American families owned cars by then, many people in rural Alabama still drove horses and buggies.

Hartselle was a small-but-bustling railroad stop with a little more than 2,000 residents. The downtown area surrounded the depot in neat rows of businesses, many of which had been rebuilt following a devastating fire in 1916 that destroyed 21 buildings and left only nine brick structures standing.

The bank was located at 109 W. Main Street in Hartselle and currently houses a shop called Crossroads Old & Unique. “There is a framed picture of the vault after the blasts and the owner can show you where the vault was located but it cannot be seen today,” according to Bettye English of the Hartselle Historical Society.

On the quiet streets of early morning March 15, 1926, Les Williams, the night patrolman, was making his rounds when a stranger carrying a gas container approached him and asked where he could find gas for his car, according to a story in The Birmingham Post from that day. When Williams told the stranger local filling stations were closed at that hour, the man pulled a pistol and took Williams hostage. He had no way of knowing the stranger’s associates had walked down the L&N tracks and cut the telegraph and telephone wires.

The group of bandits – the number varies by account – dragged Williams into Louisville & Nashville Railroad Depot and added night depot agent Brad Huie and Oscar Williams, who was awaiting a train, to the hostages.

The 1926 Post article said two other hostages were added to the group for a rather odd reason early on a Monday morning – two men from town, Mack McGinnis and Bob Griggsby, approached looking for a place to buy a casket for someone who had just died. The robbers grabbed them, too, the Post article said.

The bandits also grabbed Ernest Mittiwede, a cashier from the nearby Farmers and Merchants Bank, English said. Mittiwede, she said, “was returning home from a date when the robbers got him. All of the hostages were forced at gunpoint” to the Bank of Hartselle. The hostages were taken to a back room of the bank and tied up.

According to an article in The Huntsville Daily Times under the headline “Hartselle Was Held By Yeggmen” (“yeggmen” was a slang word for “safecrackers” or “burglars”), the captives “who fell into the hand of the bandits were held prisoners but were treated with unusual courtesy, being informed the band did not want to shoot anyone, but wanted cash only, being ‘hard up.’”

The historical marker continues the account: “When the train stopped, conductor J.A. Taylor was puzzled to find no passengers or station agent. He soon discovered that the telephone lines had been cut. Conductor Taylor used an emergency line unknown to the robbers to contact authorities in Cullman and Birmingham.”

Citizens react

Meanwhile, more of the robbers – a Birmingham Post article says the bandits may have brought two cars – had begun work inside the bank and set off nitroglycerin to try to get into the vault. “When the robbers’ efforts to access the Bank of Hartselle vault through the wall proved unsuccessful, they placed explosive charges on the vault door,” the historical marker says. “By some accounts it took eight charges to blow the door, wrecking the interior of the bank and sending debris on to the heads of the frightened hostages.”

After 3 a.m., the noise began to awaken nearby residents who “began to gather in an attempt to capture the bandits,” the Post said.

“Alarmed by the noise, many of Hartselle’s citizens emerged from their homes to investigate and were met by gunfire warning them to keep away,” the historical marker says. One of those people who came to help was a local dentist named J.D. Johnston, who lived above his offices across the street from the bank. When he came running with his gun, he was shot by lookouts for the bandits. Johnston, the only person injured in the incident, was hit in the leg and taken to the hospital in Decatur. A bullet hole can still be seen in the transom of the window across from the old bank building, English said. It now houses a bakery.

“The interior of the bank was almost wrecked by the force of the explosions which were set off The Huntsville Daily Times article said the gang was likely planning to rob the Farmers and Merchants Bank but were “frustrated by the fact that its cash was held in an interior safe on which a time lock had been set.”

When the vault was finally opened, “the vault lock was blown a distance of about 50 feet and embedded in the ceiling,” the article said.

“After they had packed up their loot, the robbers got in their cars and vanished into the darkness,” the historical marker says. “The robbery lasted more than three hours. Despite the efforts of local, state, and federal authorities, no arrests were ever made.”

The bank president said the loss was insured, which was a good thing, because the funds were never found.

Despite claims from time to time that others were under suspicion, including Mississippi bank robber Pink Callicut, no one was ever convicted in the crime.