Volume 17 , Issue 29

One Hundred Years Ago, Tuesday, 24 Aug. 1915

One hundred years ago today, 24 August 1915, Tuesday, The Guthrie Daily Leader, front page reported in second column: "Another Oklahoma Bank Is Looted." As reported in 1915, daylight robbers entered Bernice bank and took $1,500 and escaped.

Bernice, Aug 24 (1915) -- The First State bank of Bernice was held up shortly after 4 o'clock Monday afternoon and robbed ob $1,500 in cash. The robbery occurred a few moments after the bank closed for the day. The officers of the bank were busy counting the supply of cash on hand when three masked men rode up to the bank, discounted, entered the banking room, and ordered the bank officials to surrender the money. They then remounted their horses and rode at full speed in the direction of the hills to the south of Bernice.

R. D. Mode who was in charge of the bank said that all the money in the bank was taken and that the robbers entered so suddenly that all hopes of resistance was out of the question. The robbery occurred so quietly that the few people about the street did not realize what had happened until the men had left town.

A posse was quickly started in pursuit and it thought to be close on the bandits. Three young men who had been about town for some time and who had been suspected of petty robberies were thought to be the bandits. Officers of the neighboring cities and counties had been notified by wire of the robbery and the entire country was being searched. Bernice is in Delaware county in the northeastern part of Oklahoma.
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