The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 7, 1901, Page 1

VOLUME XC—NO. 68. SAN FRANCISCO, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1901. MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS IS STOLEN FROM THE VAULTS OF SELBY GREATEST BULLION THEFT OF ALL TIME AND THE SIMPLEST IN EXECUTION Robbers Tunnel the Building and Drill Through Floor of the Steel Vault, Reap- ing a Rich and F ruitful Golden Harvest All the Precious Metal Is Taken From the Safe, Rocks Beyond but Two Bars Are Left the on the Railroad Tunnel Y e to the value of $280,000 was stolen early yester- morning from the Selby Works vault at Crock- are at large, covering their more of detec- ved to unearth their ocate the where- t of convertible ry of crime this robbery surmo its predecessors. In conception, in design and in execution it -will stand as a n criminology. Concetved by master spirits and carried out with such supreme directness, this sque in its utter nnel was dug in slab of steel drilled opening, ) to date an escape y fear will be completely ves all packed made th successful. For artistic simplicity in the operation of eft and in the amount stolen no t robbery has a right to & hearing with t ‘Works at Crocket: Whoever they robbery knew well in advance of the deed ell surrounding conditions and circum- stances had to contend. The very flimsy lodgment of the bullion invited a p! 1g. More than a half mil- lion dollars bolted and barred in a casque of steel, whose walls were no thicker than three-eighths of nch and placed close to the outside wall of the building, was the mark for the daring and bold scheme of the men who succeeded in carry- ing away the greater portion of the gold and silver wealth within. Generous in crime, they did not take it all. Scoffing et the silver bullion, nothing but the gold bricks were passed out from the wvault to the confederates in waiting. But this gold bullion was heavy enough and rich enough for all that engaged in the undertaking. Eleven hundred pounds of it were packed away before the labor of love was ended. ‘Whether as a subterfuge or with afore- thought design red pepper was strewn fromx: the tunnel into the vault to the place where it is supposed the robbers meode their escape. All traces of pepper end sbruptly on the rocks of the shore not further than & stone’s throw from the entrance to the vault. Some of the keen scented detectives sniff a ruse this red pepper trafl; others declare that its purpose was natural—to choke all ca- nine following. And the questions now propounded to the detective mind are ones of direction of escape. Was it by water or was it by land? Has the booty been sunk, or has it been buried, or is it in pos 1 of the daring criminals? Ané as to these criminals—did they take the water route or the land route? More thar one mind is puzzling over these prob- f the Selby Smelting Jems of detection he shores of Ban Pablo are being scoured by screening eyes, the hills of Contra Costa and So- lano are being searched and sounded and ched for strange and sus- the waters we picious craft Five thousand dollars have been offered detecti of the perpetrators of by the Selby Smelting Works. » that will be fo the Pinkerton: ure. No its charts m a though the bullion | were that planned the | in| ! | % They look to the morrow and speak confidently of a certain solution and capt- | ure. With eyes on the ground the de- | tectives are hot at work. They are not so sanguine, although just as earnest. The- orizing is a flourishing pastime just at present and the Contra Costa hills and shores fairly reek with it. Tiermar CARRYING OUT OF BOLD SCHEME Planning of the Robbery and Taking Away of the Gold. The Selby gmelting plant is a big in- Gustry. Thousands and thousands of dol- lars in bullion form are turned out month- ly and after the process from rock to bar is completed the heavy, compact bricks are stored in vaults. There are two of these safes In the long, low sheds at Crockett, one at the north end, the other at the south. It was the former that was undermined and entered. Ten feet long, five feet wide and six feet high, this safe contained on Monday evening about one- half million dollars in gold and silver. Month after month the heavy metal bricks were rolled into this vault pre- paratory to a consignment to the Mint. Robbery was never thought of, for the safe was in the big room where the lead emelters work at the’ furnaces and day and night shift crews operate. incessantly. Three watchmen keep a steady vigil. The men who concocted the $280,000 steal were well aware that the safe was inaccesgible from the interior of the building. With the noise of passing trains on the outside | and the rumble and hissing and sizzling of the furnaces within they knew that nc light sound would force attention to their midnight dced. So the tunnel was dug close to the building, not deeper than three feet and penetrating no more than four feet beyond the outer wall line. Then began the task of drilling upward. First a two-inch plank was penetrated and sawed away, leaving the thin steel floor exposed to boring augers. In this narrow tunnel but one man could work ! 2t a time and he must of necessity have been forced to cramp his body into a sit- ting posture as he drilled and drilled and drilled. One hundred and thirty-six times did he bore into the steel floor, and when his work was done and the time for forc- ing out the oval piece of steel came he had finished a labor that must have used up many hours of many nights in the con- summatfon. On Monday night or early Tuesday morning the steel plate was forced upward and the hole made by which the robber could enter into the vault. The chances of discovery while this work was going on must have been tre- mendous. A rallroad track on which cars are and down during the night is laid not fivé!feet distant from the build- ing. The outer engrance to the tunnel was closed up with dirt after every nocturnal operation and removed when the work was recommenced. Confederates must have stood:guard whenever the prelimin- ary plans were beéing put in execution and time and circumstanc®tuned to a nicety. Knowledge of the -amount of gold and silver in the Selby bulllon vauits is easily obtained. The workmen see it as it is rolled into the iron box and any one fa- miliar with the customs of the place would readily know when and when not to; spring the job.« With the 136 contiguous holes bored into the floor, the time for ac- tion depended upon the deposit of the bul- lion in the vauit, Between 9 and 10 o'clock Monday night J. G. Johnson and Jack Owens, emploves of the Selby Smelting Works, entrusted with the placing of the bullion in the vaults, deposited the gold and silver bricks therein. Busy in the same room and at the same time were twenty lead workers. At midnight Watch- men J. G. Johnson, Tom Owens and H. Benson made their rounds. They heard nothing, saw nothing. Not until far into the night was the trace of a sound heard: Then a smelter, McGlynn by name, sud- SMELTING WORKS AT CROCKETT * + IN AND ABOUT THE VAULT WHICH WAS LCOTED OF ITS TREASURE. * * denly quit his work and exclaimed loud enough for his co-laborers to hear him: ‘““There’s either a devil or a ghost in that box.” They all listened but no further nofse emanated from the vault. McGlynn subsided, rather sorry that he had spoken. All this time the work on the outside went on. The steamer Sunol was to carry the gold to the city. At 5 o'clock yesterday morn- ing she was moored to the company's wharf and then Foreman Jack Owens went to the vaults for the bullion which was to be shipped to this city. He at- tempted to open the door but found it blocked. Using a bar, he finally pried it open and in a moment realized what had happened. . The gold bullion had disap- peared. The silver was left. Spreading the report simultaneously with the discovery of the theft, the watchmen began to search for the trail of the robbers. Red pepper served as footprints. In their escape they poured handful after handful along the track that runs through the short tunnel just beyond the smelting works. And from the track to the rocks on the shore, where it ended abruptly. A boat was seen on Monday night tied to the broken piles of the Val- lejo Junction wharf. It is supposed tiat the robhers made thelr escape in this boat 5 . FLOCK OF DETECTIVES SCOUR SHORE AND HILLS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY Many Theories of Escape Are Advanced and a Search Is Being Made for the Robbers and the Gold Brick Booty J. J. Murphy, a Meat Crockett, Furnishes Market Proprietor of a Possible Clew as to the Identity of One of the Gang e W00 % IO A A — Tt and thence no one knows whither. It was not an easy task to pack the loot- ed gold bullion. Four bars of .957% refined gold, weighing in toto 309 pounds, and about twenty small bars of various sizes were hauled away. On the rocks at the further opening of the raflroad tunnel two gold bars were found by the watchman. This represented $16,000, a relict due to haste in departure from the Contra Costa shore or a ruse to throw the searchers off the scent. .WILL SECURE CONTROL OF ALL BITUMINOUS COAL Plans Completed for the Formation of a Three Hundred Million Dollar Trust. CHICAGO, Aug. 6.—As a result of a se- cret meeting of the finance committee of the proposed $300,000,000 coal trust, held here to-day, it is said that the combina- tion will be completed by the first of next year. “You can say that the natfonal orzani- zation will be completed by January 1,” sald a prominent Indiana ocperator. “When the States are organized the na- tional body will control practically all of the bituminous output in the country. The national organization will be financed by J. P. Morgan and his friends.” American Shoemakers Crusaded. VIENNA, Aug. 6.—At a largely attended meeting of shoemakers here to-night it was decided, In spite of the announce- ment that an Americdn firm would not open a branch in Vienna, that the shoe- makers should continue the anti-Ameri- can crusade, with the view of guarding against a recrudescence of = “Yankee schemes.” No definite decision was ar- rived at as to what form the next action of the shoemakers will take. 3 Y}IEN the news of the robbery was made gen- erally known at the smelting works the super- intendent, Alfred von der Ropp. wired to Sheriff R. R. Veale of Contra Costa County and to the local offica on Montgomery street. Later in the day bunches of detectives floated into Crockett and Vallejo Junec- tion.. There was no escaping them and they will all come together for consulta- tion and action. . Captain Seymour received notification | yesterday morning and sent dispatches at once to every sheriff slong the coast, north and south, and in all the bay counties, to be on the lookout for the robbers and that a reward of $5000 had been offered for their apprehension. Cap- tain Seymour detailed Detective T. B. Gibson to assist in the case and Gibson is now on the scene. Superintendent Sayers of the Pinkerton Agency and Harry Morse and ex-Chief of Police Lecs have been engaged by the Selby Company to sdlve the problem in gold disappearance. At the Selby Works last night there was a symposium of some | twenty detectives, and the robbery was | discussed and churned from "the pro- fessional standpoint. With but the meagerest sort of clews to work on the dstectives in consultation have already hit upon two distinct sus- pects, one known by name, the other so far unidentified. Through J. J. Murphy, a meat-marketer of Crockett, the police were enabled to begin official operations. For the last six mornings preceding the robbery Murphy saw a stranger pass his plgce about 4 o'clock, and as he acted in a peculiar, suspi¢ious way Murphy's curi- osity was aroused. The stranger's hat was pulled ovar his eyes and his furtive manner made Murphy feel upeasy. Three | days ago Murphy stopped the man and to his surprise noticed evidences of | freshly turned sand on his clothes. The | market man describes the unknown as a | bright, intelligent person with piercing eyes, a2 mustache, of a heavy-set figure, medium height and wearing clothes of a good quality. This is number one for whom the sheriffs and. constables are keeping open their weather eyes. Suspicion is also fastened on Dick Phe lan, who kept a saloon in the neighber- L hood three years ago. bawking about V. He has been seen lejo Junction. Phelan has not been found and the search for him will be continued to-day. Another man named Hall is wanted. He also is among those suspected At the meeting of detectives last even- ing a machinist testified from an expert viewpoint that the ho om of n the bott the safe was cut out by a professional on account of the mathema accuracy of the borings. The plate was lifted off after the least possible number of holes was bored. Then the red pepper came up for discus- sion. It was agreed that the pepper was on hand for the purpose cf throwing it into the eyes of any possible disturber during the busy hours of the night when the gold was removed. An i the storekeepers in Vallejo Junction and Crockett revealed nothing in regard to the purchase of an extraordinary quantity of red pepper. Two theories of escape were discussed. The detectives have divided themselves into the land sharps and the sharps. The upholders of a water escape base their judgment on thetrail of pepper to the water's edge, the tying of the bhoat to the piles nearby and the relict of zold bricks. The other partisans bristle with the belief that the gold and the men whose backs must ache from the packing of it have turned inland, Sunken treas- ure or escape up the river or out into the deep waters have no charm for them. Their ideas run to burial-an earth con- cealment—and a hiding. Thinking that the gang who so boldly and successfully accomplished the robbery must Have herded together before the blow was struck a rigid search will be made for a camp. When the session of detectives ended there was much talk about the robberies of other days. In the detective mind the following noteworthy events in robbery were run over again: Some twenty-flve or thirty years ago a robbery on like lines was planned in con- nection With the Sub-Treas on Com- mercial street, in this city, but it was not carrfed through. rooks from the East came to San Francisco and rented a place a door or two above the Sub-Treasury building which they fitted up as a saloon at a cost of several thousand dollars. When well settled and fully acquainted with the surroundings they started a tun- nel in the cellar of their building, toward the vaults of the Trea in which at the time were nearly $100,000,009 in gold. Run- ning short of ready cash, they did some work on the side and thereby aroused sus- picion on the part of the police, perceiving which they levanted. On examination of the place after their depa r work so far as done was discovered and the ul- timate design made evident. Several robberies of banks in the Bast by which large amounts were secured have been effected by tunmeling. but the plunder was in the shape of ¢ and bends easily carried on the person or in & hand satchel, but never before has such a welzht of precious metal been secured and carried off b & Tl ness of the haul wou ve made Caprain Kidd or Sir Walter Raleigh turn with envy, even though they worked openly and used cannon to enforce their demands. uisitlon of For further details robbery see Page Two. concarning