April 7, 1926 another bank robbery was pulled off in Center, Alabama.  Again, the authorties compared this robbery to the Bank of Hartselle robbery. This time, the group of yeggs may have gotten as much as $10,000.   

​Just 25 days after the Bank of Hartselle, Alabama bank robbery, a similar robbery was committed in Bellbuckle, Tennessee. April 10, 1926 an early morning porter opened the bank to clean before anyone arrived and discovered the vault doors open and a hole cut through the safe door. 
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On Jun 10, 1926 The Albany-Decatur Daily published a story about the Tennessee Valley Bank in Cullman, Alabama. Officials claim to be questioning two men in regards to the March 1926 Bank of Hartselle robbery, another in Center, Alabama and investigate an alleged plot to rob this Cullman bank.  The men were watched for a few days and then called in to questioning, but were never able to rob the bank.

​In this story several unnamed witnesses claimed to have been at both the Hartselle robbery, the Center Robbery and positively identified these two individuals as having been involved.  The two named men were believed to be Jack Hallmark and Coy Phillips.  None of the Hartselle witnesses were able to identify either of the men and since the Police Chief of Cullman disrupted any potential robbery. 

So who was Jack Hallmark and Coy Phillips? Why were they suspected? 
To be totally truthful, I can not find any solid evidence that these two names were actual real people. There were several men by these names in the general areas.  But these names were never again mentioned in newspapers as far as I can find. Since the description of Jack and Coy were so very limited, It's hard to know if the semi-local men were the same as those mentioned. 
 
My assumption after having done about 8 years of research in this field, is that these names are actually aliases.  Rest assured, they are on my radar and I will continue looking for answers to this question.  These men were definitely not positively identified in the Hartselle Robbery. That doesn't mean though, that they are not bank robbers.  

If you are a Cullman resident and knew families that have information about either Hallmark, Phillips or the Tennessee Bank Plot, please feel free to send a message. 

Wouldn't you know that I was wrong.  (shh, I try not to admit that often.) Recently, I sent away for the Prison records of some men that I had found at NARA - That is, for those of you who may not know, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and in this case, it was the division in Kansas City.  I have a pretty regular email conversation with the Archivist there, and sent in my request.  In a way, I'm pretty pleased with how Covid has helped with the speed in which documents are delivered, which is now digitally through my email. Gotta love that. Long gone are the days of sending a request and waiting for it to arrive via USPS. 

Anyway, I received three different files. I was less interested in Ernest's file, so I set his aside.  After being somewhat disappointed in the other 200 or so pages of the other two files, I finally opened Ernest's short file. I was fully prepared for nothing of significance when I got to about the fifth from last page. Here I read a letter, written by Ernest himself. He was very displeased that his likeness (photograph) had been handed out to several people. Most of them wishing to use the documents and information received against him in his bid for county clerk in Ottawa County, Oklahoma. 

Ernest goes on to confirm who the men in question were. He told a compelling story about Hart Austin, a known bank robbery who was mad at him because as an "Under-sheriff" of Ottawa County, he had discovered enough evidence to place Austin's long time bootlegging brother in jail. He declares that Hart Austin is furious about this and is destroying his chances at winning.  That was June 1919.

Up to this point, I had nearly a full timeline of City Directories, Census records, and more about his life in Memphis, Tennessee.  "Nearly" is the key word here and this is why I say it is imperative that you find all those city directories for every year in-between! Look what I missed out on.  What I have come to learn after further digging is that he indeed did move for a period of time.  He has "four little children to support" in 1919, two of whom I have information that they were born in Arkansas. So for at least 1916 to 1919, he lived outside of Tennessee.  

What is even more interesting with this story is that at some point AFTER 1919, Ernest's brother Henry Diggs Nolen (Nolan) has hooked up with Hart Austin to commit many different robberies and crimes together, including bootlegging and safe blowing. The entire crew Diggs hangs out with is into something illegal. Henry Laughter for instance had several riverboats on the Mississippi and would travel from Memphis down to Mississippi and occasionally down to New Orleans, but that's a whole other epidsode! 

If you learn one thing from this (lengthy, but exciting) blog post today, it is complete that timeline!!  I only had a couple years where there is no records, and one of them was 1917-1918. RIGHT when he was under-sheriff in Ottawa, OK.  I can not tell you how much sending for this file has done for me right now. I am Enjoying My Adventures In Genealogy! 

While doing some local research, however, I have come across a group of semi-local men who fit the bill to some extent and in my opinion somewhat notorious in what they did - though, sadly were not very good at it.  Spoiler alert - THEY did not commit the robbery in Hartselle. However, they were questioned about it. They were also later all arrested for another local crime years later.

In 1925 Austin Walls is one of four men who escape from the local jail. He was in the jail for burglary. The next document I find of Austin other than his marriage is an article that is quoted to say "Former Deputy Sheriff Austin Walls, of Morgan County, was held over to the grand Jury at Athens on charges of burglary in connection with the looting of the Peebles Mercantile Company." This was Aug 1929.   Up to this point I have not been able to find any other reference before 1928 that Walls was a Deputy Sheriff, though clearly he was as 1928 articles repeatedly refer to him as such. 
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​In 1928 Owen Garrison, Austin, Houston, and Uriah Walls were charged with assault with intent to murder. The men they assaulted were Will Garrison, Aaron Garrison, Fred Clubreath, Jack Yancey and H.P. McGee.  Interesting enough, Owen, Will and Aaron are brothers. The case was appealed and continued repeatedly. The Walls boys were avoiding going to jail then went on the run.  Warrants were put out for them and one day in 1934 were approached by officers who recognized them and attempted to arrest them. Both were killed when a battle ensued. 

There had been a headline of the local newspaper in Hartselle that said Walls was arrested and questioned about the bank robbery. However, just like newspapers today, it was a bait and switch. In the article, it actually said that Walls was believed to have NO connection to the local bank robbery.  This group was never associated with the robbery. Sure, they were not the best personalities and did some pretty terrible things, however they also weren't very good at not getting caught.  

While I've not been able to prove this information; I suspect that Diggs' father and uncles were a part of a well known and notorious "Old Nolen Gang" that ran across a good portion of the United States. Based out of Memphis, I don't know exactly who was in the Old Nolen Gang. With the amount of information I have on Diggs, his brothers and his cousins, I suspect that many of his uncles were also involved.  
This image is of Digg's father Jim Tom Nolan. According to reports, he established a town named after himself, Tomnolen, Mississippi and was influential in the beginnings of it. This town oddly enough was conveniently located directly south of Memphis, TN and directly west of Birmingham, AL. 
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​The core group of men that I started my criminal research on were somehow all related. Every time I would run a family tree one man, I would find another name which led back to Memphis and the Nolan family. It was really quite fascinating.  In the old Italian mobs, they called themselves "family", and they were mostly, but sometimes it was just a feeling of being family, not blood related. This large group however were actually related in some way and were really a gang of family members. 

Diggs' early life was troubled. His mother ran a boarding house. One of these boarding houses actually caught on fire and killed several people, injuring him quite badly at the young age of 11. In college, he was a great athlete and seemed to be a good student.  By the time Diggs was in his twenties, however,  he'd been to prison several times.  One of Diggs' Brothers, Ernest,  became a police officer in Memphis but was eventually let go because of conflicts about reporting his brother's whereabouts. Ernest Nolan and Diggs Nolan were business partners in many ventures. 

​Diggs and his brother both went on to become Pharmacists. They co-owned several pharmacies in Memphis, New Orleans and other towns. I can't decide if these were just places to use as alibis for Diggs or if he really wanted to be a pharmacist, but his brother was the one who ran the businesses and eventually took sole custody of them.  Being a pharmacist led to several addictions for Diggs, however, which was quite the norm for the time. Alcohol was his final downfall though.

​The gang he was involved with, which included many cousins and his brothers were considered a formidable and well trained gang of bank robbers. They committed dozens of bank robberies across the country and were likely a huge part of the 1920 Brooklyn NY messenger robbery of $446,000. Diggs was once arrested with several bonds from that robbery on his person.  It's also believed that he and his cousin Frank Holloway were masterminds behind the world famous TWO MILLION DOLLAR Roundout Train Robbery done by Willie Newton and friends. (More about Frank Holloway will come shortly!)

Diggs was married at least three times that I can find. One of those wives, was Ethel Wykoff. She was a dominant woman and really kind of controlled the group as a whole. Formidable and kinda scary actually is how I would describe her. She was so unhappy with Diggs' performance as a bank robber, getting caught, that she shot him three times. After the third time they were divorced, but he never pressed charges, and often said that he shot himself.  She went on to marry even a worse robber - worse at doing it, not worse in the other way! 

Diggs was well known for his prison escapes. Catching a criminal was really the easiest part back then, but keeping them in jail was the challenge. Once, Diggs and 41 other men escaped. He was later found drunk, nearly naked in the back of a taxicab. He claimed he just needed a drink and to see his wife. 

Diggs died in 1928 at the age of just 41 years old. His cause of death was Cerebral Adema and his contributing cause was Chronic Alcoholism.  In the days when bank robbers were shot and killed during robberies or escapes, this seemed like a sad end to his life. We will never know if he would have eventually reformed like many of that era. 

One of the strangest "Coincidences" that I have come across while researching some criminals in the earlier 1900s is that they actually led real double lives.  I've repeatedly tried to tell some folks about a few, and their relatives or other researchers insist that It must be another person. 

One example of this is Mr. Jack Monday. - Real name John Mundinger.  John was a Vaudeville actor. He would travel doing shows all across the country.  You can imagine the people you meet while traveling.  I have just a couple articles that lists him in connection with people of interest. 

John performed a couple times with a man named Jack Dillon - in his day, Jack's actual name is Ernest Culter Price who was a pugilist. Jack Dillon was young and was asked to perform a few times and really disliked performing so he quit, but Jack Monday on the other hand lived to make the audience laugh and was highly sought after performing with many of the top names of the time. 

Price aka, Jack the Giant Killer was seen as one of the best boxers of his time as well. Had ne not had a devastating injury that took out his boxing career, he may have been a name known even today in every household.  Handsome, strong and talented, Price excelled in all he did, including illegal alcohol sales. After his retirement at such a young age, in the boxing industry, he opened a place in Hialeah, Florida and was fined and arrested several times for selling prohibited liquor.  

There isn't enough evidence to suggest that this Jack Monday was indeed the same man in the incidences with the Memphis Nolan family members, however, the honor of using his name as an alias may have been enough to implicate him by association.  Both Dillon and Monday have been in a time and place as some of my well researched bank robbery members before. 
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Both Vaudeville and Boxing seem to have been influencers in these traveling bands of bank robbers. These two names are NOT the only ones who list these occupations, they are just the most consistent and both men may have been victims of what would have been Identity theft in their time period. OR... maybe they were active participants. We may never know for sure. 

​Aside from the political side, a description of the Stockyard includes stools at the bar inside with saddles for seats and was reportedly the best place in town to buy a good steak. Knox told his editor Frank Ahlgren about the place, but he objected to Knox drawing up a cartoon about the events. Henry Laughter’s father and brothers were all heavily involved in many criminal activities from the mentioned political interventions, to alcohol running up and down the Mississippi with the Nolens, to running a house of ill repute and bank hold ups across the country.
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Henry and his wife Lillian opened a restaurant on West Virginia Avenue in Memphis called The Two States Cafe up until their arrests in 1941 for a mail pouch robbery from the Memphis Airport which ended the criminal careers of the entire family including brothers E.A., Lonnie and Lucian.
Below is a Political Cartoon drawn in later years by Jack Knox and a photo of Jack and his son Britt Knox that appears in the Cannon Courier in Woodbury, TN in 2014.

28 Mar 1913 - Bastrop, Texas

The headline reads: "Bank Robbers Arrested: Band of "yeggs" Run Down by Burns Men.  Gang Believed to Have Worked in Louisiana and Elsewhere in the South..."

What is interesting in this is that the photos of these men with their alias' were published in connection with the robbery and capture.  Many of the early robberies are talked about by investigators and the majority of the time, these detectives and investigators, aka "Lawmen", are well aware of who has committed the crimes.  

I've been researching the Hartselle Bank Robbery for about 8 years now. While I know who has committed the crime, I quite often will find one of those men associated with a whole other group of Yeggs. That's the case with this image here. Floyd Nolan was one of the men who is associated with the group of men from Memphis who committed our local robbery. He and his cousins, brothers and a couple comrades were in on it together.  However, three of these men, were never in my radar.  What is difficult in this Hartselle Bank Robbery research is that the sheer number of men and women associated with each other in all the different places has been a challenge to untangle.  H. F. Robinson, Frank Shultz and A C. Karslake are all from a Texas band of robbers. What was Floyd doing there? How did he get involved with them? Where was his brother Diggs Nolan at? 
I've answered some of those questions in research on some individuals.  By the way, FIVE people were arrested for this crime, one not pictured. Mrs. H. F. Robinson was also arrested. 
I've mentioned before in other social media posts that we often like to think that their wives, mothers, and children would be blissfully unaware of their actions. But the truth is, that many of those relatives were more than aware and often even participated in the crimes as well.  
Weird though to imagine your grandmother (or great grandmother) driving the get away car or carrying the shot gun in a hold up?  
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     He was dubbed one of the most notorious criminals of his time in Oklahoma.  He was credited in newspapers with the killing of Edward Starr in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  If you know your historical Old West history at all, you may recognize the name "Starr".  Henry Starr was a notorious robber and uncle to the Sam Starr who married Myra Belle Shirley also known as "Belle Starr", Infamous in her own right.    

     While the killing of Ed Starr increased Holloway's notoriety what made him well known was not necessarily his ability to rob and kill, though he was noted to have killed at least 8 men and probably more.  He was considered someone who would brag about his accomplishments and he could escape and disappear more often than he was captured. 
     After the killing of Starr, Holloway appears to stay in the crosshairs of every lawman in North America. He was then captured in Chicago in 1912 and claimed bank robberies in Westminister, BC, Panama City, Mexico, and Harold, Texas.  He escaped again in August 1912 and this put lawmen on edge. 
     Holloway had many associates in the business. Some of these were distant cousins. He was considered part of the Old Nolen Gang before he made a name for himself.  In December 1912 he made his way to Memphis, TN when he learned one of his associates was being transported between jurisdictions and the rest of his comrades were planning a rescue mission.  Word of this rescue spread quickly however, and left one member dead as well as Holloway recaptured. 

​ Holloway was eventually released in 1916 with the understanding that he should keep his record clear. Quite amazingly enough, Gov. W.P. Hobby of Texas gave Holloway a full pardon in December of 1917.  No newspapers reported anything more on Holloway, however his prison record states "failed to keep record clear" in April of 1918. He may have served more time that  year but then all is quite for him. 
      After several years out of sight, Holloway is shot dead and left in a shallow grave outside of Tulsa, OK. Reports indicate that he may have been shot by some of his own comrades over a dispute about money.  The downfall of Holloway's free flowing confessions were likely part of his demise as well.  
     I recently found a man who wrote a book about a great-uncle who was a sheriff in Texas and had run-ins with Frank Holloway.  I've written him, but I can not recount some of the items he talked about without his permissions, so I'm going to have to come back and update you on those stories.  However, It's fascinating to read another account about Holloway's personality.  More to come I hope!!

John "Johnnie" Benjamin Bowman alias Jesse Williams was born 15th of November 1889 in Chester, Crawford County, Arkansas to John Edward and Anna Horton Bowman. He had two sisters Mary and Goldie. 

Johnnie's father "Ed" was originally from Illinois which could very well explain his connections to other members of what is the Nolen Gang of Memphis, Most members of the Nolen Gang in Memphis had elder family members who were called "The Old Nolen Gang" that lived both in Memphis and in Southern Illinois, mostly related to each other as cousins. 

Johnnie was a member of the 1920's Nolen gang that rained terror across the country for quite a few years, robbing banks, small stores and some trains from Memphis, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah and possibly as far as California. Members of this gang included Diggs Nolen, his brothers Ernest and Claude, Digg's cousins Floyd Nolen, Brantley Mitchel, Louis Austin,  and Infamous Oklahoman bank bandit Frank Holloway. It's most likely that this group of "younger" members were following in their fathers and uncles footsteps as all signs and articles lead to the elder parents being referred to as "The Old Nolen Gang". 

What is most interesting here is that Johnnie was reported as having been shot by police officers in 30 Aug 1938. All his prison record files contain the same note saying "Killed in Gun Battle with Deputy Sheriff's Indianapolis, Ind. 8-30-38".  

However, I recently found his obituary written (presumably) by a family member or his wife.  Information contained in this, his delayed birth certificate, his marriage to Lucy Wiley and the death of his children, all confirm that he survived this shooting and lived the rest of his life in Florida. 

I have to tell you, I absolutely love reading Newspapers at Newspapers.com. However, just as today, they aren't always super reliable. Often if the information that they published first turns out to be incorrect, either they would never follow up to find out if it was true or not or they just didn't care to publish a rebuttal.  I've repeatedly found that many of these guys would be found arrested and incarcerated, and then still be reported as having been involved in something else.  Most of the time, they were not in jail or prison for very long periods of time. 

Such is the case for Johnnie. Once he was out and the gang disbursed across the country, he too lived a relatively peaceful and crime free life with his family and became a respected part of his community. 

"I thought I'd start my latest blog with one who was pretty interesting.  I hope you enjoy this new series of research. 

I first heard the name Riley "Alabam" Simmons while researching a series of names connected to a robbery here in my home town. After doing a little more digging, I found out who "Alabam's" connections were. He was on the run in Alabama, wanted and hiding out. He is one of the few named suspects for our local bank robbery connection.  

Riley D. Simmons was born October 21st, 1902 in St. Clair County, Alabama to Edward Sylvester Simmons and Claudia Virginia Davis. Siblings were Lillie, Russell, Lila May, Clyde, Sarah, Cecil, and Helen. For most of his younger life however, he was raised in a suburb of Birmingham. His father Edward was born in Springville, Alabama and his mother was born in Trussville, Alabama.  

According to a Newspaper interview of "Alabam", He first ran into a group of men who were notorious after his family moved to West Frankfurt, Illinois. He was driving a Taxicab for members of the notorious Birger Gang when they murdered Lory and Ethel Price, a State Patrolman and his wife. Convicted members of the Charley Birger Gang were Art Newman, Leslie Simpson, Fred Wooten and Connie Ritter.  Another member was never found, Ernie Balleu (Blue). ALL of these men will be in future blog posts as well. 

"Alabam" Simmons, Leslie Simpson, and Connie Ritter were all on the run together and reportedly hiding out in several Alabama locations while committing some random bank robberies and thefts along the way.  "Alabam" was caught and held in Leavenworth Prison for a five year sentence for using counterfeit money when he was extradited to Illinois for trial. He was then sentenced to life in Menard Prison for the double murder participation in 1927. He was the very last of the gang who was released, claiming that he was not given fair treatment and was forgotten. 

There are a great number of books and articles on the Birger Gang and their Rivalry with the Shelton Gang in Southern Illinois.  One book I highly recommend would be IllionoisHistory.com books by Jon Musgrave, incidentally, he has had several conversations with me about the role the Sheltons and Birger Gangs and I found his knowledge extremely insightful and thorough.  Check out Bloody Vandetta, Inside the Shelton Gang and Secrets of the Herrin Gangs.