Murder & Scandal in Prohibition Portland: Sex, Vice & Misdeeds in Mayor Baker's Reign (True Crime) by Chandler JD & Kennedy Theresa Griffin

Author:Chandler, JD & Kennedy, Theresa Griffin [Chandler, JD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

HIGHLY ORGANIZED CRIME

I keep two bank accounts so in case one goes broke I won’t be washed out.

–George Baker

The Sells-Floto Circus performance in Vancouver, Washington, on the night of September 16, 1921, was well received. It featured more than seventy-five separate acts, fifty-seven clowns and what the circus’s press agent called the “greatest act playing under the big top today,” the Riding Hannefords—a family of trick riders featuring “Poodles” Hanneford, the trick-riding clown. The act that really dazzled the crowd that night was the “slack wire” routine of Berta Beeson, a former grocery clerk from Indiana whose real name was Herbert Beeson. Beeson dressed as a woman for his act, and very few in the audience could tell the difference. Crime often followed the circus on its travels, but the 1921 season was more crime-plagued than most; in Baker, Oregon, that summer, two prisoners escaped from the city jail during the circus parade that preceded the first performance. In Vancouver, after the last performance, crime struck again.

It was the regular weekly payday for the circus crew so there was more money on hand than usual as F.A. McLane, the circus treasurer, loaded up the “treasure wagon”—a large truck—to transport the box office take to the “treasure car” on the circus’s train that was parked in the Vancouver train yard. Five members of the Hanneford family, including Poodles and his mother, Grace, the family matriarch, were riding with McLane, his assistant Robert de Lochte and Mike Grace, the driver, as the truck left the circus grounds. When the truck entered a clump of woods on the way to the rail yards, two shots were fired from the trees, and two men jumped out, ordering the truck to stop and all of the people to get out.

Grace Hanneford was uncooperative from the start; she refused to get out of the truck as the others were lined up along the side of the road. She argued with the robbers, and they finally agreed that because of her age she could stay in the truck as long as she kept her hands up. The robbers searched each person, taking jewelry and other belongings. McLane had $600 in cash and several checks on him, which the robbers took. Finally, the robbers searched the truck and found the money bag, which contained more than $4,000 in cash and over $20,000 in bank drafts and checks. The robbers ordered Grace out of the truck finally and began searching her. Poodles the clown objected to the robbers’ rough treatment of his mother, and one of them hit him in the head with a pistol, knocking him out. Grace began to fight with the robber searching her, and she was knocked out as well. In an act of spite, the robbers took Grace’s handbag and glasses before fleeing in a stolen Hupmobile driven by a third robber.

The two robbers who handled the crowd were later identified as Roy Moore, an ex-logger from Portland who had recently moved to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.