The headline screamed “Yeggs Rob Hondo Banks,” (The dictionary defines “yegg” as: “a thief, especially a burglar or safe-cracker.”) and the Hondo Anvil Herald added, “One of the Most Daring Robberies Ever Staged in Texas Occurred Here Sunday Morning.”

Although it was early in their careers, the Newton brothers (Jess, Willis, Doc and Joe) were already very good at their chosen profession. The Anvil Herald account noted that the robbers were “experts in explosives,” having blown the door off the State Bank vault with TNT and at the same time having worked the combination of the safe in the First National Bank, just 200 feet away.

Between midnight and daybreak (according to the newspaper), all the telephone lines in town were cut “by someone thoroughly acquainted with the system,” and “entrance to the first National Bank was effected by forcing the front doors, while entrance to the State Bank was effected by prizing down bars over the last window in the alley between Parker’s and the bank.” Nearly $5,000 cash was taken (mostly in silver coin), along with an estimated $25,000 to $30,000 in government bonds and War Savings stamps. For an estimated two hours, the thieves “beat open private boxes” with a sledgehammer they had stolen from a nearby blacksmith shop and ransacked the vault, leaving everything traceable in a two-foot-deep pile on the floor. The owners of those private boxes bore the heaviest losses in the robbery.

Although the night watchman was sitting “not more than 60 yards away” in the waiting room at the railroad depot, the robbery was not discovered until 5 a.m., and by that time, there was no clue as to the direction of their flight.

A pair of pick handles were discovered in the vault, apparently for the thieves to “put up a fight” if they were discovered. A crow bar stolen “from the tool house of Pat Lynch’s section crew” was found in the alley, and detectives beli ...

Read the entirety of this article in the print edition.

Subscribe online — it's quick and easy