State Exchange Bank Robbery May 29, 1933

On May 29, 1933, at 9:04 a.m., seven men staged a hold-up of the bank in a widely publicized robbery in which six robbers were captured after a chase west of Culver. The seventh was arrested in Chicago in late October. Of the $12,655.60 stolen, $9,375.61 was recovered. THE STORY:

That Monday morning a car came in from the North and stopped in front of the bank. Five men, masked, with one machine gun, and four sawed-off shotguns jumped from the car and went in the bank.

Mr. Osborn had seen them from the front window and set off the alarm, which alerted the citizens of Culver . Another account it is said that the switchboard operator was the one who sent the alarm out as she was in a concealed office where she could survey the whole premises. When the bandits entered the bank she sent a call to the academy which set in the pre aggranged defense plan for the bank. The alarm was ringing when they came in the door spraying bullets.

Oliver C. Shilling (son of Schuyler Shilling) with gun in hand ran to the roof of the two-story shoe repair shop south of the bank, and from that vantage spot, shot between the eyes the driver seated in the get-away car. The second man waiting outside ducked for cover behind the car. Inside the bank, two of the robbers made the fourteen people in the bank lie down on the floor, one stood guard at the entrance, one in the middle of the lobby and another took Carl Adams to open the vault.

The next day The Chicago Tribune reported: “Culver Trains Guns on Bank Bandits; Gets 6.”

Scenes from the 1933:


	Culver ’s first banker, John Osborn, points to the bullet holes in Dr. Mackey’s car
Irene Bogardus, Wilma Smith, Martha Werner, Helen Kruman, and Lenore Medburn faced the bandits’ guns
	Citizen publisher M.R. Robinson exhibits the special edition of the paper devoted to the robbery
Oliver C. Shilling demonstrates his shooting technique
	the car of H.H. Tallman, riddled with bullet holes,
and the same vehicle after evidence of the gunshots was removed by D. L. Jones.



More detail on the robbery can be found here, in True Detective Magazine's feature story on the robbery and capture effort.

The robbers took Carl Adams and a customer, Stephen Warren, with them as hostages placing them on the running board of the car.

The wounded driver was shoved aside and another man drove. The new driver did not know the roads. In frustration, the two hostages were let go at the west edge of town and the car proceeded North and crossed State Road 10 going West. Dr. C. B. Mackey was following close behind in his car. And when the get-away car skidded from the road on a sharp curve, the men stopped the doctor and took over his car. The doctor administered to the wounded driver who later died. In unknown territory, the driver tried to cut the car through a woods west of Ober which was swampy. The stolen car bogged down in quick sand.

They had to abandon the car and scatter on foot. A large posse of Culver citizens, joined by men from Plymouth and North Judson and led by Col. Robert Rossow, commandant of the Culver Military Academy [said to have numered 500 which included 10 officers from Culver Military Academy], encircled the robbers and all but one were caught. One of the men was in a tree, another submerged up to his neck in water, another man with the leader of the gang were well hidden with only their faces showing above the swamp water. Over half of the money was gathered throughout the woods with the largest sum found buried under a root on the bank of a creek.

"A Primitive Method of Enforcing the Law"
Vigilantism as a Response to Bank Crimes in Indiana, 1925-1933
Paul MUSGRAVE

On May 29, 1933, hundreds of vigilantes captured three men in the woods just outside Culver , Indiana. Their quarry was the last of a gang who had stolen more than $12,000 from the State Exchange Bank in Culver that morning.

Armed with shotguns, the robbers had entered the bank at 9:07; while some of them watched over the bank's customers and employees, their leader ordered the assistant cashier to open the va ult, which the gang members then emptied. Alerted by a telephone call from a bank employee in an adjacent office, a group of local vigilantes (soon numbering five hundred, including ten officers from the Culver Military Academy) quickly mobilized and surrounded the bank.

Using two captives as human shields, the bandits ran to their getaway car. As they sped away, the bank president's son, perched on a nearby building's roof, shot and killed the driver.

The car overturned, but the surviving bandits stole another one, leaving their hostages in a ditch. After crashing into a tree ten miles out of town, they fled on foot into the woods, where the vigilantes apprehended them piecemeal over the next few hours.

The trial for the robbers was held in Plymouth and ended with three robbers being sentenced 3 to 10 years and three sentenced to 2-8 years. The seventh was arrested in Chicago, IL. In the inner circles of prison, it was said that John Dillinger cased the Culver Bank and believed it too diffic ult to get away. Apparently, the seven men did not know of their fellow criminal's observation.

Some months after the robbery, Mr. Osborn received an extortion note from one of the robbers threatening death if W.O. didn't bring $20,000 in a bag to a particular location in Plymouth, Indiana.

Daughter Francis Osborn Butler remembers her mother, her husband's mother and father, who were visiting from Nebraska, and herself going to Plymouth and waited for news of the drop at a restaurant. While Will drove, Oliver Shilling was lying in the back of the car on the floor with a submachine gun. Four policemen were staked out in a house across from the alley. Osborn dropped the sack filled with fake bills beside a trash can. No one came to pick up the bag. But a lone car cruised by the site after midnight leading police to believe it was the robber who was tipped off to the stake-out.

Bank Robbery of 1933 - It was 75 years ago today.. The great Culver bank robbery of ' 33