BANDITS ON A DOWNTOWN STREET

NORMAN.  V.  KELLY

During a steaming hot day on July 27, 1935 the human traffic along our sidewalks had slowed down a bit.  Every spot where a bit of shade was offered was taken, and only the auto traffic was normal.  Over at the infamous Empire Cigar Store at 139 Jefferson Street, two men were exiting the rear door when all hell broke lose. The Empire was owned by Bill Urban and one of the McCluggage Brothers and the place was a legitimate business.  This place like most taverns and saloons in town also had different forms of gambling. A guy could buy a ‘Pea’ there every day and have a slim chance of winning the ‘Numbers Game’ in Peoria.  Bill was a nice man, a professional business man and he made a ton of money in whatever he did.  He was kidnapped once and disappeared.  His son was with him but the bad guys let him go and Bill was the talk of the town for quite awhile. In a few days he was back in town and that is when the rumors and the legend rally began for him. Truth is he never told anyone what had happened to him, but that never stopped the gangster fans in Peoria from filling in the blank spaces, even down to how much ransom he had paid.  I have written a lot about gambling and so-called gangsters so you will just have to go on line and find those stories.  But on this day in July some bandits, hoodlums, gangsters, bad guys or whatever else you want to call them decided to rob the messengers that hauled money back and forth to the downtown banks for Bill Urban. Without much fuss three men quietly watched and waited for the messenger and the ‘special policeman’ to come out of the cigar store to begin the delivery of the money.  Actually they had two bundles of money:  One with two thousand one dollar bills in it and the other containing eight thousand dollars.  The bad guys admitted that they expected to get more like eighty-thousand dollars, but that never happened.

 

Joseph Backes was a well-known guy in town and he worked for Urban as a body guard and money watcher.  He liked to refer to himself as a ‘special police officer’ but I can tell you the local cops never condoned that title.  He of course carried a gun and he knew how to use it.  I will also tell you that the police did not interfere in Urban’s business…enough said.  The two men were accosted as they stepped out of the building as one of the bandits said,“ Stick ‘em up.” Another man named Richard ‘Dick’ Day, alias Al Mace backed him up and before Backes could react he was shot.  The money was then ripped out of the hands of the courier and the eight thousand dollar bundle was torn from beneath Backes’ shirt.  Backes stumbled but pulled out his gun and began firing.  He was severely wounded and ended up in the hospital with at least 60 bb s from a shotgun in his chest, arm and shoulder. 

 

Now all this took place within a very few seconds and police found at least a dozen eye witnesses and got about that many versions of the robbery. During the string of gun shots two of the bandits were shot and quickly in custody. The get-away driver, who was the only guy from Peoria, apparently saw things were out of hand and never showed up to take the bandits to a car they had stashed away for their long trip back to Chicago.   Superintendant of Police, Fred Nussbaum was soon at the scene and that is when he and his men discovered that the $2,000 package was missing.  Now how could that have happened? 

 

Over at the hospital where three of the participants were in different stages of critical care, Nussbaum began his investigation.  Dick Day was obviously the leader but he had little to say to the chief detective. “Chief…I do not know the names of the men that were with me. I met them in Chicago where we planned all this and a guy from Peoria had come up to set it up.  He told us that he was certain that Mr. Urban would have over eighty-thousand on hand and we agreed to spit it up evenly.  Them guys did not know me and I did not know them.  That is the way I do business.”

 

Backes was eager to talk to the detectives and the press and showed the bruised and bloody holes in his upper body and arm and smiled as the cameramen did their jobs. He wanted to make sure they wrote that he did not drop the money it was jerked away from him.  He also stated that he felt that he had hit one of the guys that got away, and that the bandits slipped up on them and ‘just started blastin’ away.”

 

Detectives worked most of the day talking to witnesses who gave them some pretty wild tales.  One person had the sense to write down the license number of a car because the man looked suspicious.  That was the Peoria man and he was later identified as Joseph Roach and the car license was a California plate number 54-9-141.  Police stated that the man probably ditched the car and was long gone by now.  However, they put out an all points bulletin but never apprehended Roach. With the help of Backes the robbery had been thwarted and eight thousand of the money was returned to Bill Urban.  What happened to the $2,000 package? Of course the police suspected that one of the witnesses had taken it and the witnesses suspected the police.  Typical attitudes back in old Peoria I can assure you of that.

Editor’s Note:   Norm is a Peoria Historian, author and a monthly contributor to Adventure Sports Outdoors. norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net