On this day
1861 — The Provisional Confederate Congress convenes in
Montgom-ery, Ala.1922 — Ford Motor Co. buys failing Lincoln Motor
Co. for $8 million.1938 — Walt Disney re-leases “Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs,” his first full-length feature film.1945 — Roosevelt,
Churchill and Stalin meet at Yalta.1962 — Russian news-paper
Izvestia reports baseball is an old Rus-sian game.1974 — The
Symbio-nese Liberation Army abducts Patty Hearst.1983 — Pop singer
Kar-en Carpenter dies from heart failure brought on by
anorexia.
“Long and anxious minutes ticked away” af-ter the case against
Carl, Earl and Bernie Shelton, the infamous Shelton Brothers Gang,
was giv-en to the jury in federal court in Quincy.
The brothers were on trial for the 1925 murder of an elderly
mail carrier in which $15,000 was taken.
Gaining control of gambling interests and illegal liquor
distribution throughout southern Illi-nois during Prohibition, the
brothers terrorized the residents of William-
son County and beyond. An open war between
the Sheltons and their rival, Charlie Birger, employed machine
guns, trucks equipped with heavy armor plating and dynamite dropped
from an airplane. The Satur-day Evening Post called them “America’s
bloodi-est gang.”
The brothers were convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
After their release, Carl was murdered on his farm near Fairfield
in 1947 and the following year, Bernie was gunned
down walking out of his gambling club in Peoria. An attempt on
Earl’s life in 1949 was unsuccess-ful and he lived into his 90’s.
He died in 1986 in Florida.
n Three boys were being held by police for breaking the window
of a grocery store owned by Mrs. Ida Hawley at 119 E. Calhoun Ave.,
and escaping with $1.75 in pennies. Police found the boys, ages 12,
13 and 8 years, loitering in the neighborhood.
While in custody, the boys described a mini crime spree,
admitting to breaking into and stealing candy, cigarettes and a gun
from Lauter-bach Brothers Grocery, 121 North Grand Ave. W.; 10 or
12 pennies from Knoedler Bakery at 1121 N. First St.; and $8
from Cantrall Grocery at Second Street and North Grand
Avenue.
They also tried to break into the George Hammond Cigar Factory,
420 N. First Street but were frightened away after breaking the
front window.
n It was “Smith” night at the Winter Indoor Charity Circus at
the State Arsenal. Every Smith in the city had been sent a written
in-vitation to attend, and Springfield Mayor J. Emil Smith was to
officially open the show. The evening included judging the
“Unbobbed Hair” con-test, which included 76 participants vying for
a
diamond ring if they had the longest and best hair.
n Police were look-ing for thieves who had stolen two
automobiles the previous evening in the vicinity of the Arsenal
during the third annual police ball.
n Cook County judges who handled divorce cas-es proposed that a
bill be introduced in the legisla-ture mandating at least a 10-day
wait between the application for and the issuance of a marriage
license. It was believed that the measure would “put an end to
hasty marriages” and cut down on the large number of divorce cases
“swamping the courts.”
— Rich Saal
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Sheltons: ‘America’s bloodiest gang’
FLASHBACK SPRINGFIELD — Feb. 4, 1927
Monday, February 4, 2013 THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER PXX
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