The Car Barn Bandits Were Chicago's Worst Nightmare

 

(Gustave Marx. Buffalo Times. November 23, 1923)

The car barn bandits were every Chicagoan’s worst nightmare. Four bored boys, armed and out for thrills and let the consequences be damned.

A string of robberies had plagued the city since early March 1903. Then, in July, the bandits killed two men while robbing Benjamin La Gross’s saloon on North Ashland Avenue.

Toward the end of August, three boy bandits raided the city’s car barns, killing two men before escaping with almost $2300. Since then, the police had beaten the streets for nearly two months with no results.

Detectives had dug up a few leads, but nothing they could sink their teeth into.

The first actual break in the case came in late November when detectives captured Gustave Marx.

Amelia Earhart: Fame, Flying, And The Last Flight

 

Amelia Earhart (The Grand Island Independent. June 18, 1928)

In June 1928, Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic. Sort of. She was in the airplane, and she crossed the ocean, but she didn’t do much flying. Wilmer Stultz piloted the plane. Louis Gordon was the mechanic.

Amelia sat in the back of the Fokker Friendship, kept the log, and helped where she could. The flight took over twenty hours. When they landed in Wales, the reporters didn’t care much about Stultz or Gordon.

They wanted Amelia.

She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Within days, Amelia Earhart was famous.

There was just one problem. She knew she hadn’t really done it. “The boys did all the flying,” she said, describing herself as something close to baggage.

The newspapers weren’t so careful about the distinction.

Marie "Boots" Williams The Prettiest Girl Ever Arrested In West Virginia

 

Marie "Boots" Williams
(Evening Public ledger. November 25, 1920)

Newspapers had a heyday after the arrest of eighteen-year-old Marie Williams (aka Boots), calling her “the prettiest girl ever arrested in West Virginia.”

That same day, Marie told reporters, “They haven’t got a thing on me. I’m having a lot of fun—a regular lark—and the laugh will be on the cops.”

She was talking about her arrest as an accomplice in the murder of Henry T. Pierce in Philadelphia.

The girl entranced detectives with her beauty and fun-loving personality. “She is the most remarkable girl prisoner we ever had in custody,” said Police Chief Frazier. “Her nerve is simply astounding. She eclipses anybody that has ever come under my observation.”

After her lover and partner in crime, Peter T. Treadway, told her he confessed everything, Marie talked. She told detectives she had moved in with Treadwell about three weeks before the murder occurred.

She described the murder as a drunken brawl. “Don’t you believe it was anything else, either,” she told detectives.

“They cannot put the crime of murder on us,” she continued. “We were invited to Pierce’s apartment to have a midnight lunch after a ride and nothing else.” Of course, she wanted a ride in his fast red car.

Babe Ruth: The Man Who Made Baseball Loud

 

(Journal and Courier. June 13, 1920)

Babe Ruth hit baseballs over fences, drank with reporters, stayed out all night, ate whatever was put in front of him, and treated most team rules as suggestions. 

 

Managers fined him. Baseball suspended him. His waistline kept getting bigger, and every few years somebody decided he was finished.

 

Then he’d hit another ball into the seats.

 

For twenty years, Babe Ruth made a pretty good living doing things baseball players weren’t supposed to do.

 

George Herman Ruth Jr. was a wild kid. He skipped school, got into trouble, and drove his parents nuts. When he was seven, they sent him to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore.

 

St. Mary’s was run by Catholic brothers and filled with poor, orphaned, and troublesome boys. George cared little for rules and discipline, but he liked baseball. One of the brothers, Matthias Boutlier, could hit a ball a long way, and George watched him closely.

 

Pretty soon, George could hit one a long way too.

 

Jack Dunn of the Baltimore Orioles signed Ruth in 1914. George was nineteen and knew little about the world outside St. Mary’s, so Dunn had to look after him. The other players started calling him “Dunn’s babe.”

Barney Oldfield: The Man Who Taught America to Go Fast

 

(The Atlanta Journal. September 25, 1910)

Barney Oldfield was probably the most famous race car driver in America when most Americans didn’t own a car.

 

That was part of the fun of it.

 

Oldfield raced anything that moved and some things that probably shouldn’t have. He started with bicycles, moved on to motorcycles, then climbed into racing cars that were little more than giant engines bolted onto skinny wheels. 

 

He smoked cigars while he raced, got himself suspended more than once, and never seemed terribly concerned about what the people running the sport thought of him.

 

For twenty years, Barney made a pretty good living scaring the hell out of people.

 

As a teenager in Toledo, he worked odd jobs until he saved enough money to buy a bicycle. Bike racing was big business in the 1890s. There were tracks all over the country, newspapers covered the races, and expert riders could pick up prize money and sponsors. Oldfield turned out to be pretty good.

 

He was also pretty good at promoting himself.

 

He called himself the “Bicycle Racing Champion of Ohio” and sometimes raced with a bottle hanging around his neck that looked like it contained whiskey. He later said it was vinegar, which may have been true. Either way, everybody noticed the bottle.

A Murder in Dixon, California

Susie and Lewis Belew (San Francisco Examiner. November 14, 1897)

The small town of Dixon, California, had a genuine murder mystery on its hands at the beginning of November 1897. Two of its most popular residents, Louis and Susan Belew, died suddenly after suffering terrible stomach pains. Their hired hand, Bruno Klein, just scraped by. For several days, it was touch and go. The doctors weren’t sure if he would make it or not.

It was supposed to be a time of celebration. In two weeks, Louis was to marry Cara Ferguson and Susan Charlie Ehmann. 

They had dinner with their brother Frank the night before they died. Frank got sick and said he vomited, expelled his meal several times, then had a headache. Susie gave him some headache powder and sent him home shortly after 7 p.m.

Charlie Ehmann arrived at the house at about 9:30 p.m. He remembered locking the kitchen door when he came in.

Everyone was fine the next morning. Louis and Susie sat down for breakfast. Louis walked down to the livery stable so Bruno could go to the house and eat breakfast. By the time Bruno finished eating, Susie was vomiting all over, so he went down to the stable to send Louis back. Bruno found Louis was as sick as his sister when he got there.

Stonewall Jackson At The First Bull Run

General Thomas Stonewall Jackson (Century Magazine. 1884)

By noon, the Confederate left was falling apart.

Union troops had crossed Bull Run that morning and hit them hard. Men who had marched onto the field expecting a quick fight were suddenly stumbling back through the woods, bleeding, exhausted, and scared. Officers tried to stop them. Some did. Plenty kept going.

 

The fighting rolled south toward Henry House Hill.

 

General Barnard Bee had been in the middle of it for hours. His command was chewed up. Regiments had lost their shape. Men were scattered through the trees and along the road. Bee rode through the wreckage trying to pull something back together.

 

Then he saw Jackson.

 

Thomas Jackson had brought his Virginia brigade onto Henry House Hill and planted them there. While men from other commands streamed past, Jackson’s Virginians stood in line waiting for the Federals to come.

 

They did.