Back to Index

Al Spencer & Gang

 Part 2

At this period in Oklahoma penal history, it was not at all uncommon for prison inmates to be granted leaves-of-absence, often under near scandalous circumstances. A number of State Governors earned notoriety for their apparently inexplicable leniency towards prisoners, even those who had committed major crimes. Consequently, there is nothing mysterious about Spencer's being granted such a leave-of-absence on July 26, 1921, ostensibly to attend to "some family business." He returned on August 27, driving a car which, according to (Henry) Wells, he had stolen in a Kansas border town, and diplomatically presented it to the Deputy Warden. The latter, continued Wells, had its engine numbers filed off, after which "he wore it out." A good story, whether true or not.

Anyway, Spencer was soon granted trusty status, and having been trained as an electrician in prison, was sent outside the walls on January 27, 1922, to do some work in a private house. The job complete, he packed up his tools and, like (Silas) Meigs before him, simply walked away.

Meigs, meanwhile, had resumed the stick-up business. About noon on Wednesday, December 21, 1921, unshaven, dressed in workman's clothes and brandishing a small revolver, he held up the Nelagony State Bank at Nelagony, a small town on the western edge of the Osage Hills. He escaped on horseback with $1,503 in a sack, and a posse which went after him returned empty-handed, reporting ruefully that his tracks had "led nowhere."

Evidently, Spencer lost no time in making contact with him, and it was only a couple of weeks after his departure from McAlester that they teamed up as bank bandits.

On Monday, February 13, 1922, although the banks were closed in honor of the anniversary of Lincoln's birthday the previous day, cashier R. M. Grimes and assistant cashier C. T. Everettson went in to the American National Bank in Pawhuska to deal with some urgent business. Everettson boarded at the Grimes home, and as they walked back for lunch, he remembered that he had left some papers in the bank. He went back to retrieve them and was there shortly after noon when Meigs and Spencer walked-in. Spencer was wearing a mackinaw and sporting a small moustache. Meigs was wearing a hat and rough coat, his face covered in its usual three-day stubble. As Meigs stood over six feet tall, while Spencer was five inches shorter and some sixty pounds lighter, they would have stood out in any crowd, let alone as bank bandits.

Everettson didn't know the combination to the safe, but the bandits calculated that sooner or later Grimes would return to see what was up, which was exactly what happened. He walked in to be greeted with a pistol stuck in his ribs and the information, according to the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise: "We're old timers and we don't want to hurt anybody, but we're going to hurt you if you don't open that safe." Grimes refused to do as ordered, telling them they would just have to go ahead and do their worst. After repeated threats, Spencer finally told him: "All right, we don't want murder on our hands. Keep your money." For which, reported the Osage County News, Grimes was "very thankful."

Reduced to looting the cash drawers, Spencer and Meigs came up with a miserable $147 and sixty cents, hardly worth the bother - and, certainly not worth the risk - of robbing the place.

By this time, according to the various press reports, fully thirteen customers had wandered into the bank thinking it was open for business after all. They were all herded into the small vault, protesting in alarm that with so many of them in such a confined space they might suffocate before they could be rescued. After some hesitation, reportedly, the bandits agreed to take Everettson with them, on the understanding that they would turn him loose just outside town and he would return to free the prisoners. In the event, he was released as promised; but, by the time he got back to the bank, the prisoners had managed to free themselves by unscrewing the door hinges with the screwdriver which many banks kept in their vaults for just such a situation.

The press had hardly stopped discussing the implications of the Pawhuska robbery and the growth of banditry in the area generally before Spencer and Meigs struck again, this time in the lumber town of Broken Bow in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma. On Tuesday afternoon, February 21, they stuck up the McCurtain County bank, locked cashier Russell Herndon and two customers in the vault and escaped by the back door with between $7,000 and $8,000. They hijacked a service car and forced the driver to take them to a spot three miles north of town where they had left two hired horses tethered.

They managed to elude a sheriff's posse which went after them; but, according to Henry Wells, then proceeded to get well and truly lost in the unfamiliar terrain, and spent three or four days wandering around, somehow losing their horses in the process, before they managed to jump a north-bound freight train. They finally arrived back in the Osage Hills, said Wells, "dead tired and dirty as coal and cinders could make 'em."

Following their return, Meigs went to hide up for a spell at the home of Sol Wells (brother of Henry) near Bigheart, about twelve miles northwest of Bartlesville. He was there on Saturday afternoon, February 25 - only four days after the Broken Bow robbery - when a Osage County posse under the orders of Sheriff C. D. Musselwhite turned up looking for an illicit still, reported to be in the area. As three of the possemen approached the Wells place, Meigs opened fire with a high-powered rifle, mortally wounding Claude Collins, an oil company employee who served occasionally as a posseman. He was then himself shot dead either by the dying Collins or, as a later newspaper report suggested, by the other possemen, who generously credited Collins with the killing so that his widow could collect the reward offered for the outlaw.

Part of the $153 found in Meig's possession was identified as having come from the Broken Bow bank, and bank officials, viewing his body, later positively identified him in that robbery, and in the earlier holdups at Nelagony and Pawhuska.

As yet unidentified as the smaller bank robber, Spencer was by now thoroughly ensconced in the Osage Hills, which at that period were about as safe an outlaw haven as America had to offer.

"Since the days when Abilene, Arkansas City and Dodge . . . were young and flourishing cow towns," wrote Gerald Moore, "the 'Osage' has been a haven of the fugitive. It lies in northeastern Oklahoma - a vast stretch of heavily timbered hills and rocky canyons with here and there a winding path through almost impenetrable tickets of scrub oak. Five minutes walk in any direction from Pawhuska, the county seat, and one may lose himself in the dense undergrowth . . . There are places in the country, such as the Lost Creek Canyon where Henry Wells has his home, where you can stand on a rocky mound, look for twenty miles in any direction and see no trace of human habitation. Then, in a deep canyon, three hundred yards away, you might stumble upon a previously invisible ranch house. An ideal stomping ground for men on the scout."

And also, Moore might have mentioned, adjacent to the Kansas line, offering a quick escape into that State in the event that even the Osage became too "hot."

Apart from Wells at Lost Creek Canyon, Spencer had friends at Bartlesville and Ochelata, brother-in-law Grover Durrell at Pawhuska, and at Okesa he had Ike Ogg, a middle-aged oil worker whom he had met in Nowata County, and who later claimed to have been an unwilling aide in Spencer's crimes.

In "A Dynasty of Western Outlaws", Paul I. Wellman wrote: "In the year and eight months between Spencer's escape from McAlester and his death, he and his gang robbed twenty banks by actual knowledge, and he was accused of robbing twenty-two more." In fact, the total usually given by the newspapers of the time was twenty-seven bank robberies, a figure given for recent holdups in one of the Oklahoma Bankers' Association's periodic reports, issued at a time when Spencer had become notorious. Some of the press appear simply to have credited them all to Spencer, disregarding the known fact that some of them were the work of unrelated bandits. Wellman probably got his totals from Courtney R. Cooper, who in "Ten Thousand Public Enemies" stated that Spencer and his gang had held up 42 banks.

With present knowledge, it is impossible to state just what Spencer's actual tally was, but somewhere between a dozen and twenty would seem most likely.

Also, he never really headed what could be called "a gang." His circle of associates constantly changed, new recruits being enlisted as older hands fell foul of the law.

A contemporary press report, incidentally, said that Spencer didn't look or talk like an old-time bandit, but more like "a dry goods clerk out on a fishing trip." Unfortunately for the legend, he appears in fact to have been fairly close to the "clerk" stereotype - - mean, suspicious and self-centered - - which may explain why he outlasted most of his companions.

As mentioned already, Spencer had not yet been identified as a bank robber, and was wanted only as a fugitive from McAlester. His involvement in the bank robberies already mentioned was only discovered much later. From an anecdote provided by Henry Wells, however, it would seem that he must have been back robbing banks fairly soon after Meigs' death. According to Wells, early in May 1922, a foursome made their way to Pineville, a small town in the extreme southwestern corner of Missouri, intending to rob the town's two banks. Named by Wells, they were Wells himself, Spencer, J. Majors and Lewis Connelly.

Majors, more commonly given as Jay C. Majors, was an oilfield contractor and an experienced bandit. Connelly was surely the same man as Louis "Slim" Connelly, who had been robbing banks at least since 1914, and would still be robbing them, as a member of the Alton Crapo gang, in the early 1930's. It is difficult to imagine such a quartet being together for any length of time for any other purpose than bank robbery.

At any rate, they stayed at the home of a rancher nephew of Wells named Brandy Garrett; and, while preparing for their raid, spent a few quiet days fishing in the local creek. All went well until they decided they needed some liquor, and raided the home of a local bootlegger. Presumably, the fellow had an arrangement with the local authorities, because on the evening of May 14 (1922), a squad of local officers went out to check up on them. Different accounts were given of what ensued. According to the officers, they approached a car containing three men and a woman, shots were exchanged and the suspects escaped.

According to Wells, the gang were on their way down to the creek to check their fixed lines when the officers appeared.

"Al thought they were lookin' for liquor," he said, "so he told them to come on up to the car. Instead of doin' that they stepped behind trees and told us to throw up our hands and come outa' the car. This J. Majors was scared to death and he did just like they told him to. They must of been plenty scared too, for they cut down on him and shot him in the groins. Al rolled out the other side of the car with both guns blazing when the officers started shooting. I kin take you back there an' show you yet where he peeled the bark around the trees where these men were hiding. They took out through the woods and crossed a little creek with Al right behind them. That was the last I seen of Al until he got back up here."

Wells and Connelly took the stricken Majors to hospital in Joplin, where he was arrested a few hours later, then hightailed it back to Oklahoma. The woman, Eva Ewers, was also arrested. After routing the posse, Spencer made his way back to the Garrett place, and a few hours later, kitted out to look like an itinerant harvester, was driven in a wagon to Neosho. There, he stowed himself away on a freight train bound for Oklahoma, and eventually got back to the Osage without further mishap.

Presumably, Connelly wasn't too impressed with Spencer's trigger-happiness as he appears to have dropped from the picture. However, about this time, a new character appeared on scene, namely Dick Gregg of Sand Springs, a suburb of Tulsa, who having been born on January 30, 1902, was now just over twenty. Arthur Lamb, who knew him quite well, said that he was a likeable young man who appeared to yearn for "a better life," but the record suggests otherwise. Wells said that he was interested only in guns and fast cars and that his father, unable to control him, was only too happy when Spencer took him off his hands. This is significant because the father, John Gregg, was himself a hard character - - a couple of years later, in an altercation in a rooming house at Shidler, Okla., he killed the notorious Major Poffenberger, formerly of the Majors gang of southeastern Kansas.

About three weeks after the Pineville affair, Gregg and a coupld of others, having run short of provisions, decided to take a run over and burglarize a store in Ochelata. Having broken into the place, at about an hour after midnight on June 7 (1922), they were spotted at their work by Night Marshal William B. Lockett (or Lockhard), a middle-aged family man who had been in the area for about ten years. When he accosted them several shots were fired and he was killed instantly with a .38 bullet through the heart. A witness, who kept discretely out of the way, later reported that he heard one of the gang saying: "You've followed us long enough, you old bastard." (See; "Oklahoma Heroes" by Ron Owens p.132).

Spencer, Gregg and a third man, jumped into their car and escaped. The fourth robber, at the rear of the store when the action took place, managed to escape attention but had to walk home.

According to Wells, it was Gregg who fired the fatal bullet, but a newspaper article some months later quoted Spencer as expressing regret at having to "bump the old man off."

On Friday, June 16, a little after noon, Spencer and Gregg stuck up the Elgin State Bank at Elgin, a small town in Chautauqua County, Kan., lying so close to the Oklahoma state line that it was practically in the Osage. Neither bandit was masked, indicating that they weren't overly worried about being identified.

Cashier D. H. Hall and his wife were in the bank, along with several customers. One of them had just cashed a cheque for $150 and was standing, no doubt anxiously, with the money in his hand. Spencer carefully told him to hand the money over to Hall, so that when it was added to the loot it would be the bank's loss rather than the customer's. A small boy who had just cashed a cheque for $3 was ordered with a grin to stick the money in his pocket. Gathering up between $1,500 and $2,000 in currency, and a bundle of bonds reported to amount to $20,000, the bandits hustled the Halls outside and into the getaway car, two other customers being forced to stand on the running boards, one on either side, to act as shields. As the car gained speed, however, one was pushed off and the other jumped, neither being hurt in the process.

As the bandits crossed the state line and headed south into Oklahoma, a pursuing posse from Elgin gave up the chase, to be replaced by other posses from Pawhuska and Bartlesville. Mrs. Hall was set free after a few miles with orders to tell the possemen that if any shots were fired they would kill her husband. One posse did briefly make contact with them, but refrained from shooting for fear of hitting Hall, and before long, Spencer and Gregg gave them the slip. Just north of the Bartlesville-Pawhuska road, the getaway car was abandoned after it got a flat tire and, still with Hall, the bandits trekked the last few miles to Ike Ogg's home near Okesa. Ike, apparently, was alarmed at thus being openly involved in the affair, but needlessly, as Hall had no idea who he was.

After some debate, it was decided to set Hall free in the woods. Next morning, tired and dishevelled, he managed to find his way to Okesa.

The activities of Spencer and his cronies over the following months can only at present be traced by the growing series of bank robberies in which they were - - or were believed to be - - involved.

On July 26, 1922, four masked bandits held up the Citizens National Bank in Spencer's hometown of Lenepah, Okla., making off with $1,339, but escaping northeast rather than west towards the Osage. The newspapers came up with no suggestions as to who the robbers were, but Spencer must be at least a likely candidate.

On Friday afternoon, September 8, four bandits driving a Buick touring car appeared at Centralia in Craig County, twenty miles northwest of Vinita. While two stayed in the car, the other two marched into the First State Bank and held up cashier Clell Farbro. As they were collecting the loot - $200 worth of Liberty Bonds and $2,980 in currency - two youths named Blaine Delquest and Glenn Corlette walked in, to find themselves, a couple of minutes later, being bundled into the vault along with Farbro. Although the bandits again made a clean escape, this time there were repercussions.

On September 15, Nowata Chief of Police Henry Lowery, Vinita City Marshal M. O. Gabbart and Deputy U. S. Marshal Julius Payne, searching for an illicit still in the Big Creek area, had a run-in with a young Cherokee named Ralph Carter. When he started to haul out his pistol, Gabbart killed him with a bullet through his heart. Next day, officials from the Centralia bank positively identified him as one of the robbers.

On October 2, three men giving their names as Clyde Berry, Lloyd Cox, and C. C. Carter, were arrested by a Deputy Sheriff at Bigheart, Okla. It turned out the "Carter" was, in fact, Dick Gregg. Farbro was unable to identify him as one of the Centralia gang (which could simply mean that he was one of the pair who stayed in the getaway car) but by now the Kansas authorities wanted to talk to him about the Elgin robbery. Two weeks after his arrest, following complicated legal proceedings, he was extradited to Kansas.

On October 14, evidently recovered from his gunshot wounds, Jay C. Majors was picked up in Bartlesville by Chief of Police L. U. Gaston. Although he vehemently protested his innocence, he was identified by Farbro and lodged in jail at Vinita.

Most significantly, however, a newspaper report soon after the robbery named one of the gang as A. L. Spencer, the first time - after at least half a dozen bank robberies - that Spencer had been identified.

On Friday, October 13, 1922, a five-strong gang held up the First State Bank at Osage, escaping with $1,188. What made the robbery unusual (although by no means unique) was that two of the gang were dressed as women. Some of the press took the view that they must have been men disguised as women, particularly as one of them actually held a pistol on cashier W. S. Alyea and two others as two men scooped up the loot. Unless the thing was a joke, however, it is hard to see why on earth men should have dressed up as women to rob a bank.

On August 26, 1923, the Tulsa Daily World ran a story on a Pawhuska tenant-farmer and suspected cattle-thief named Jim Lohman, stating categorically that he had been a member of Spencer's crowd, had taken part in the Osage robbery, another bank holdup at Grainola, and various other activities, and had eventually been expelled from the gang due to his "nervously apprehensive disposition." Although none of the witnesses to the robbery could identify Lohman, and he later launched a defamation suit against the Tulsa World, claiming $50,000 damages, it is difficult to imagine the newspaper naming him so positively unless it had some sort of evidence to back it up.

The article also stated that Lohman had been the boyfriend of a girl named Goldie Bates, who threw him over in favour of Spencer. In light of this, it is quite easy to imagine badman Al going out to impress his new girlfriend by taking her along on a bank holdup and actually letting her brandish a pistol. From what is known of Goldie, she would have been well up to the job.

Henry Wells, incidentally, had been paroled after serving five years and a day of his prison term, and was in no way reformed. According to his memoirs, he was visiting the oil town of Dewey, a few miles northeast of Bartlesville, when he ran into another Osage Hills worthy named Clarence "Pat" Ward, an occasional bandit who was at the point earning an honest living as an oil worker. Wells went along with him when he cashed his pay-check at the local bank and out of sheer habit "cased the joint," noticing that it would make a good target for holdup, particularly as the windows were set high enough that people in the street couldn't see in.

Back in the Osage, he said, he mentioned the bank to Spencer and Gregg, and with a third man, they promptly went up and robbed the institution. The holdup, which took place about 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 18, was well reported in the press. The bandits drove into Dewey in a Hudson sports car; three men, with a woman at the wheel. They parked near the Security National Bank and, while the woman stayed in the car, the men went in and held up cashier C. H. Kaylor and bookkeeper Ernest Koester. The drawers yielded up $2,453 in currency and cash. The bank men were locked in the vault and the bandits drove away without attracting any attention. Kaylor got through by telephone to the local exchange, where an alarm system was in operation, and a crowd of armed citizens converged on the bank under the mistaken impression that the bandits were still inside.

Reported the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise - "The bank robbers had disappeared as effectively as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. After a search lasting until dark, members of the posse returned empty-handed and gathered together for the purpose of simmering down all the wild rumors which were rampant following the robbery . . . It is agreed that the robbery was one of the neatest jobs of its kind ever staged in this section of the country and everything points to the fact that the mystery will never be solved unless the robbers themselves come in voluntarily and confess to participating in the crime."

The best guess seemed to be that the bandits had driven north, then turned west and made a run for the Osage Hills. The same night Lloyd Cox, one of those arrested with Dick Gregg a couple of weeks before, was picked up on the grounds that he owned a Hudson speedster; but, when Kaylor and Koester were unable to identify him, he was released.

Despite Wells' story, Dick Gregg was definitely not one of the bandits, having been handed over to the Kansas authorities only two days before. Nor is it likely that Spencer took part. Kaylor and Koester described the bandit trio. One was 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds, with light hair, a fair complexion and a light-colored suit. Another was a large man, weighing about 185 pounds and wearing a leather coat, and the third was described as a slender six-footer with a black beard and moustache, wearing a black suit and black hat. None of the descriptions remotely resembled Spencer.

Suspicion inevitably fell on Clarence Ward, and also on another Osage Hills badman named Ed Shull, but that was apparently as far as it got. A veteran Texas bandit named Thand C. Caton, then known to be operating in southern Kansas, was later mentioned, but again apparently without result.

At Bartlesville, however, Chief of Police Gaston realized that one of the descriptions given fitted Henry Wells, and when shown a mixed bunch of photographs, Kaylor at once picked out the one of Wells. Ordered to report to Sheriff Musselwhite's office in Pawhuska, Wells was then identified by Kaylor in the flesh and was duly charged.

Tried in October 1923, a year after the robbery, he presented an alibi, backed up by various friends and relatives, that his brother Sol's infant child had died only two days before the Dewey bank was robbed and that at the time of the robbery he had been involved in family affairs. A Bartlesville barber was then brought in to testify that he had shaved Wells only four days before the robbery, whereas the bandit described as Wells by Kaylor had been heavily bearded. Although Kaylor was still positive in his identification, Koester was now not so sure. In the end, the jury were unable to reach agreement and Wells was discharged.

At the same time his involvement must remain a strong possibility. In his memoirs, he mentioned details about the robbery that normally only a person at the scene would have noticed, such as that when the bandits left the bank they waved a hat to summon the getaway driver. Also, it should be noted that in his later years, Wells boasted that one of the reasons he usually managed to escape punishment for his crimes was his ability to work up a good alibi, invariably backed up by others.

As 1922 drew toward a close, the outlaws' exploits showed no sign of diminishing.

Part 3