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| Frank Carter, the Omaha sniper |
The Omaha Sniper didn’t rob banks, kick in
doors, hold up payroll wagons, or swagger through saloons with two pistols
blazing.
He
hid in the dark and shot strangers.
That
was worse.
People
understand greed, revenge, and drunken rage. A man who steals money has a
purpose. A man who kills over jealousy has a reason, twisted as it may be.
A
hidden gunman firing at people he didn’t know was something colder.
His
name was Frank Carter.
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| Party lines meant sharing a phone line, and never knowing who might be listening |
Party lines sound fun until you remember
what they really were. If you grew up in Iowa before the 1970s, they usually
meant sitting at the kitchen table waiting for your neighbor to quit jawing so
you could make one lousy phone call.
Half
the time it was impatience, suspicion, and somebody wondering who in the world
had been talking for forty-five minutes.
Hollywood
got hold of the idea in 1959 and turned it into Pillow Talk with
Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Two strangers sharing a line, then romance and
comedy break out. Nice enough on the movie screen. But in real life, sharing a
line usually meant grumbling and hanging the receiver up harder than necessary.
Instead
of every house having its own private phone connection—two, four, six,
sometimes even more families were tied into the same wire. One line. Several
households. Zero privacy.
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| An early newspaper depiction of the Council Bluffs train robbery |
The men who robbed the Burlington Fast
Mail Train No. 8 in Council Bluffs on November 13, 1920, didn’t ride horses or
wear masks. They didn’t wave revolvers from the saddle or disappear into canyon
country like dime novel bandits.
They
were local boys.
Boys
who knew the rail yards. Boys who knew the schedules. Boys who knew that one
train rolling through town that night carried more wealth than most people
would see in ten lifetimes.
By
sunrise, they had stolen millions.
Council
Bluffs was built on rails. Freight trains rattled through at all hours.
Passenger coaches came and went. Mail runs cut through the darkness. Stock cars
groaned. Couplers slammed together like gunshots. Steam drifted across the
yards in white clouds. Lanterns swung through the night in the hands of
switchmen and brakemen. The whole place smelled of coal smoke, hot iron,
grease, mud, and livestock.
If
a man wanted to vanish into noise and confusion, there were easier places to
fail and few better places to succeed.
Burlington
Train No. 8 looked like any other fast mail run. Cars loaded with sacks. Clerks
sorting letters under dim light. Men hauling packages and registered pouches.
Nothing about it advertised fortune.
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| The crowd outside the Drake Park State Bank after the robbery |
The four men who walked into the Drake Park
State Bank on July 13, 1921, didn’t look like bank robbers. They were dressed
like ordinary customers. Men wanting to cash a check or ask about a loan.
The bank sat in a busy Des Moines neighborhood.
Inside, it was a normal summer day. Clerks counted money and worked their
books. Customers drifted in and out. Nobody paid much attention to the four
strangers.
Then the guns came out.
One man covered the lobby with a revolver. Another
jumped the counter. The others rounded up employees and shoved them toward the
rear, barking orders. Police later suspected “Lucky” Tommy O’Connor was one of
the men inside. Several bank employees identified him as the robber who drove
them toward the safe.
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| Silly Silo was a classic Adventureland attraction for nearly thirty years |
If you grew up in Iowa, Adventureland was
the place to go. Summer vacation. School trips. Boy or Girl Scout outings.
Adventureland
had something for everyone. Food. Rides. Games. People watching.
All
of that was fun, but the rides are what you remember most.
The
Silly Silo (1974–2013)
looked like an ordinary farm silo. Until you walked inside.
Then
things went crazy.
Riders
were crowded against a wall while the room spun faster and faster. When it got
up to speed, the floor dropped away. It was simple engineering, but first-time
riders felt like the world was ending. Or at least your little part of it.
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| Poke Wells |
He rode into Riverton, Iowa, on July 11, 1881. Before the day was over, his name was splashed across front pages all over the Midwest.
Poke’s
autobiography said his partner was a man named Wilson. That might be, but early
reports pointed to Bill Norris. That’s how outlaw stories go. People toss out
names and wait to see what sticks. In the end, his partner’s name doesn’t
change the story, other than he blamed the entire affair on him. “Wilson,” he
said, “now insisted on being initiated as a bank or train robber.”
Poke
and his partner didn’t rush in blind. They spent a day or two looking over the
country around Riverton. They inspected horses owned by Mr. Parsley and Mr.
Burks, thought better of buying them, then stole a pair from Mr. Anderson
instead.
