Eagle River Review

DARING BANK ROBBERY.

Six Masked Robbers Loot Vaults at East St. Louis Stock Yards.

Six masked men entered the National Stock Yards Bank, north of East St. Louis, Ill., Monday night, and after capturing and gagging the two night watchmen and firemen at the plant and blowing open the vaults with dynamite, took $5,000 in coin and currency, with which they decamped.

For nine hours—from 7 o'clock Monday night until 4 o'clock Tuesday morning—they were at work on the vaults without meeting interference. The bank watchman was bound hand and foot and gagged with towels.

With nitroglycerin the robbers blew open the steel doors of the vault. These doors, of a double thickness of steel, were shattered and the bank's books and papers were torn into shreds. Entering the vault, the big steel safe, with quadruple plate doors, was encountered. These were drilled and a charge of the explosive inserted, which blew them off. The explosion destroyed more books and papers and scattered about $600 in gold and silver on the floor. This money was not taken by the robbers. They took all the currency and the other coin, amounting to about $5,000, as nearly as the bank's officers can estimate.