Personnel at the Kasey Klub had just concluded counting the night’s receipts – and the harmless was continue to open up – when they identified themselves confronted by adult males with handguns about 3:30 a.m. June 1, 1947.
The Kasey Klub, positioned just exterior the city limitations on U.S. 41-Alternate, was one particular of the area’s nicer nightclubs all through the 1930s and ‘40s. It was not as plush as the Trocodero, and couldn’t pay for the nationally acknowledged musical functions the Troc regularly highlighted, but it was solidly in Henderson’s 2nd tier.
It was owned by Hampton and Hoffman Kasey. Hampton had remaining previously that evening to push Clyde Adkins house. Hoffman and club secretary Ella Swope experienced been counting the dollars. Willie Oglesby, the evening watchman, had earlier been grabbed even though checking the exterior of the creating.
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The robbers took somewhere around $4,500 from the safe and sound, but also ransacked the place of work to take these kinds of factors as pistols, fountain pens and child gloves.
The victims surely were being not dealt with with kid gloves. They have been shoved and threatened when the robbers “argued between by themselves.” Swope experienced a pistol poked in her ribs various times.
The men had their hands sure at the rear of their backs with two-inch-vast tape and ended up compelled into the restroom. The robbers then turned their focus to Swope: “Come with us.”
“I believed they were heading to make me go with them,” she instructed The Gleaner in its June 3 edition. Rather, they all acquired into Swope’s 1939 Chevrolet coupe and drove all over to the front doorway, in which Swope was compelled back again into the club and bound to a chair. The robbers still left in Swope’s car or truck.
Her bonds ended up “none also tight” and she rapidly freed herself. “By the time I obtained unfastened I could even now listen to the auto.” She hollered to Kasey and Oglesby that the robbers had still left and then walked to the close by Stone’s Tourist Camp to phone authorities. Wires to the Kasey Klub’s telephone experienced been slice.
Swope apparently gave the robbers an earful throughout her ordeal, telling them what she would do if the odds have been even. “We think that she would do just what she advised them she could do,” said The Gleaner’s editorial of June 4. “Why not stage it and give the proceeds to the delinquent kids fund?”
The June 4 version also carried a tale about the capture of the to start with of the a few bandits, along with a image of him. W.W. “Bill” Martin, a Kasey Klub staff, had tracked E.E. “Blackie” Young to Harrisburg, Illinois, with the enable of Tom Wilkerson and Richard Stevens. Martin burst into Young’s hotel area at 1 a.m. June 3 and held him at gunpoint until finally law enforcement could get there.
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(Awfully quickly law enforcement operate for anyone who wasn’t a law enforcement officer, really do not you believe? We’ll arrive again to that in a second.)
Almost $1,600 of the loot was found in Young’s lodge room, and he mentioned a different $1,000 was hidden in close proximity to Henderson. He also implicated Coleman Howard as one particular of the a few robbers, but claimed he didn’t know in which the other two were.
Swope’s motor vehicle, by the way, was discovered near to the “Nut Hut” in Atkinson Park. Youthful had employed taxicabs to take him to Harrisburg.
The June 5 Gleaner carried two tales. One particular was about how Youthful was wished for questioning in the November 1946 loss of life of a woman in Danville, Illinois. Martha Gones, 50, had been identified dead in an alley after getting struck in the head with a tender consume bottle.
The other story associated how Youthful didn’t like his photograph The Gleaner had published and refused to have any further more dealings with reporters or photographers.
The June 12 Gleaner claimed Youthful, who it described as a “swarthy Louisianian” from New Orleans, experienced entered a plea of not guilty and had waived his ideal to an analyzing trial. His scenario was sent on to the grand jury. He required to be unveiled on bail, so he could have a gall bladder operation, but it was denied.
The Gleaner of July 25 described the capture of the next bandit. Arnold Stevens, 25, was asleep on his bed – with a handgun close by – in his residence off of Seventh Road. Deputy Sheriffs A.W. Agnew, Buster Brackett and Lemuel Knight, together with County Patrolman Glyn “Red” Seward, mentioned they ended up acting on an anonymous idea. Seward included Stevens’ spouse with a submachine gun when they requested her to open up the doorway.
“Seward protected the hunted gentleman with a submachine gun while Agnew woke up him. The officers claimed Stevens manufactured no try to reach for his gun but place his fingers into the air.”
The Stevens situation meandered as a result of the courtroom method, but almost nothing even further of curiosity appeared in The Gleaner right up until Aug. 13, when he was held to the grand jury.
Youthful had not worn a mask through the robbery the other two males experienced. Swope recognized Stevens “as one of the two men, masked from the nose down, who experienced held guns on her and Hoffman Kasey when they ransacked the safe.”
Bear in mind W.W. “Bill” Martin, the fellow who captured Youthful in Harrisburg? He also experienced items to say ahead of Stevens was held to the grand jury. “Bill Martin, another (Kasey Klub) worker and a brother-in-legislation to Stevens, testified that Stevens, E.E. “Blackie” Younger and Coleman Howard ended up at the club before in the night time.”
So, it appears capture of the criminals was a little something of an inside of work.
The Gleaner of Sept. 17 documented Younger was indicted on prices of grand larceny and armed robbery Stevens confronted only the theft charge. The armed theft cost was no joke it carried a mandatory sentence of possibly loss of life or life imprisonment.
That is possibly why Young and Stevens were able to access a offer with Commonwealth Lawyer Faust Y. Simpson, in accordance to The Gleaner of Sept. 24. They entered guilty pleas to a lesser demand of armed assault with intent to rob and both equally were being sentenced to 21 years. Young obtained another five yrs on the grand larceny charge.
The final gentleman, Coleman Howard, was captured by the FBI in Tonawanda, New York, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 14. The Oct. 23 edition claimed Howard experienced been returned to Henderson. He was scheduled for trial May well 9, 1949, according to court documents, but the prison warden wrote a letter to the choose indicating he experienced an innovative case of tuberculosis and it was not a good idea for him to go to demo.
As an alternative, Howard showed up in court docket Could 9, 1950, and entered a guilty plea to a diminished demand of theft, which carried a jail expression of up to 10 several years. He was sentenced to the bare minimum of two yrs.
The Kasey Klub lasted less than two a long time following that. The Kasey brothers at 1st experienced a modest cafe at that place, but The Gleaner of Nov. 22, 1936, noted a important enlargement experienced taken position. A dance ground measuring 40 by 60 feet was included, which was just one of the most significant in the spot. A different aspect was a sq. bar trimmed in red leather-based. The ceiling was blue with silver stars indirect lights was highlighted through the club.
The Henderson County directory however shown the Kasey Klub as of 1966 but I’m not certain it was in procedure by that point. A Dec. 17, 1970, posting by Hugh Edward Sandefur telling of the building’s pending demolition explained “it has been shut for a variety of decades and has deteriorated….” The rear part with the dance floor experienced by now been razed by that place, and the rest was coming down in just days.
“The nation’s enjoyment designs have changed wholly due to the fact the days when any evening would find individuals from a large radius collected at the Kasey Klub for a festive evening.”
100 A long time Ago
Voters in the Dixon vicinity were receiving prepared to choose no matter if the community’s superior faculty would go on following the Basic Assembly voided the charters underneath which these types of universities operated, according to The Gleaner of June 7, 1922.
The Gleaner of June 13 described voters experienced authorised the school’s continuation by 268 to 140. The vote imposed a new tax on home proprietors in Dixon and in just a 2.5 mile radius of the town.
50 Years Ago
County Choose John Stanley Hoffman announced in The Gleaner of June 4, 1972, that he would not stand for a next phrase of workplace.
“Not right up until I truly came to my workplace in January 1970 did I absolutely enjoy the magnificent electrical power and responsibility” of the office we now get in touch with county judge-government. “Never just before in my lifestyle experienced I ever had the direct obligation of creating choices which have an impact on so lots of men and women in so many strategies.”
25 A long time Back
Faculty Board Chairman David McKechnie said he acknowledged the wants of several student packages but questioned the by no means-ending fundraisers for extracurricular functions, according to The Gleaner of June 1, 1997.
Superintendent John Vaughan agreed: “It’s really receiving to be as well a lot.” He recommended setting up a exclusive committee to review fundraisers to assure potential buyers get something of worth, pupils are guarded, and university organizations have budgets that justify the sum of funds raised.
Viewers of The Gleaner can achieve Frank Boyett at [email protected] or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.