Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 049-1 - January 1995 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-05 07:04:52 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:05:59 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:05:59

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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hy A Bank Robbery in Grass Valley in 1912 by Michel Janicot o O,. THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1912, at 12:40 p.m., a lone man entered the Nevada County Bank’s Grass Valley branch at 110 Mill Street (now Johnny’s Cafe and Donut Shop) and escaped with $5,280 in gold coins. According to the Morning Union, William D. Harris, general manager of the bank, was at the main receiving window while Al Mooser, cashier, and Miss Alta Clymo, stenographer, were at work at their desks. The audacious robber “menaced the officers with two dangerous-looking revolvers,” and succeeded in taking possession “of a generous portion of the bank funds, in the accomplishment of which he ordered the three [to walk backwards] into the bank vault and turned the combination upon them.” The thief then “proceeded hastily, removing all of the piles of gold .. . and placed them hurriedly into his pocket,’’ before walking out of the bank, where he mounted his horse which was hitched to a post. With his arms “tucked under the pockets of his coat to keep the money from dangling too heavily at his side and clinging to the reins and the horn of the saddle, he rode boldly down Mill Street,” keeping the animal in a walk until he reached the corner of Neal and South Auburn streets, when he urged the horse into a gallop. The newspaper reported that as the robber rode out South e™™Aubum Street, “the jingling of the money in the man’s pockets could be plainly heard by pedestrians.” It further stated that some of the money had been spilled from the man’s pockets and that “more than a dozen people took up the golden trail.” Some $445 in gold coins was recovered by onlookers and returned to the bank the following day. The horse, which the thief had rented at the Le Duc Livery Stable on East Main Street (now in 1995 the home of Sofa Sensations), was found abandoned a mile from town in the vicinity of the Bonivert Ranch. The robbery was discovered by Fire Chief Adolphe Morateur when he entered the bank to cash a check and heard the noise of the imprisoned officials pounding on the door of the vault. Morateur ran across the street and notified the bank’s director, and a general alarm was sounded. A. B. Champion, assistant cashier, rushed to the bank, where he succeeded in opening the doors of the vault. Harris, Mooser and Miss Clymo were locked in the vault for about 25 minutes, and “aside from the terrible fright they had experienced no discomfort,” the newspaper stated. A posse was organized with Marshal Davis using an automobile owned by A. B. Snyder of the Grass Valley Garage (now the site of Wells Fargo Bank on Mill Street). Sheriff “\e™ Henry Walker joined in the hunt as far as Colfax and Dutch Flat in Placer County, and the woods “were combed without the slightest trace of the fugitive.” The following day, a cache of clothes was found hidden in the Union Hill Tunnel, where “laundry marks on a handkerchief and a towel may lead to the ownership of the articles.” The Union commented that the robber “may be the same man who held up J. A. Wright of the Hoffman Bar in Nevada City some time ago.” (Wright, who ran a billiard and pool saloon on Commercial Street, had his liquor license renewal denied five days after the robbery; he gave up his fight for renewal on May 29 and retired from the business.) A reward in the amount of $750 was posted for the apprehension of the bandit, who actually showed up in town. several months later and tried to rob Dan Blair’s saloon on Mill Street (now a jewelry store). A customer, Evan Lloyd, “who was somewhat intoxicated,” thought the robber was “only fooling” and started to walk toward the man, who took a shot at Lloyd. The injured man tried to run for the door, but as he fell to the floor the robber shot again and missed. Then Blair and several customers “jumped on the robber, took his gun away and beat him up unmercifully so he could hardly stand up.” They then took him to the city jail (then located at the rear of the Bret Harte Inn, adjacent to the Elks building), where a large crowd gathered. The robber heard that the mob was going to hang him, “so he took his pants belt and fastened it to a vent in the cell and used his necktie to hang himself.” He wasn’t found until he was dead a few hours later that night. Both Harris and Mooser positively identified the man as the robber of the bank. An investigation later revealed that his name was C. M. Ohman, who had worked for a few months at the Union Hill Mine, where he was considered to be “an excellent diamond driller and lived considerably to himself.” The Union of December 16, 1966, reported that Ohman went to San Francisco after the bank robbery and “lived it up in a golden shower for a month.” Ohman allegedly “kept a woman on Pacific Street and was widely known in San Francisco’s dance halls.” Evan Lloyd, who died from the gunshot wound soon after he was taken to the W. C. Jones Hospital, was a cigar maker and father of the late Frank Knuckey, former Grass Valley Chief of Police, City Councilman, and Mayor. Bank manager William D. Harris was born in England in 1851 and came to Grass Valley in 1873, where he was a miner “for about two years.” In 1876 he was partner with John Farrell in a clothing business on Mill Street. Farrell (who also was minister of the Grass Valley Methodist Episcopal Church) was the organizer and first director of the Comish Choir, and Harris was the organist when the choir gave its first concert on December 24, 1876, on the steps of