Time Machine: The heist of 1915

Editor's Note: First of three parts)

CEDAR RAPIDS — In its accounts of the 1915 robbery of the Cedar Rapids National Bank, The Evening Gazette reported, 'The amount obtained places the robbery among the biggest ever committed in Iowa.'

Cedar Rapids National, at the corner of Second Avenue and Third Street, was founded in 1877 as a private bank. In 1887, it converted to a national bank with $176,570 in deposits and A.T. Averill as its president. By 1915 it had deposits of more than $7 million.

Allen Metcalf, transit department manager at the bank, heard someone calling his name when he passed behind the teller's cage shortly after 7 a.m. on Aug. 4, 1915. The voice was coming from inside the vault. Sitting on a box in the money compartment was Leo Perrin, the bank's paying teller. Perrin appeared ill and told Metcalf the bank had just been robbed.

Metcalf ran to the front door, but it was locked. When he reached the rear of the bank, he opened the spring-locked door and ran out into the street, hoping to see some evidence of the robber. There was nothing. He returned to the bank and called police and bank officials.

Perrin told police he arrived at work that morning and swung open the inner door to the vault. Just then a man stepped in front of him, pointed a revolver at his head and ordered him to open the vault's steel gate. Perrin complied and the two entered the vault.

The vault compartment, where the bank kept currency on hand to supply smaller banks, held about $400,000. Ignoring several sacks of silver that were piled on the floor, the robber ordered Perrin to unlock the money compartment. Perrin said that he purposely turned the dial too far to try to buy some time, but the robber pressed the gun against Perrin's head and said, 'No monkey business, damn you.'

The increasingly distraught teller opened the door and watched the man remove bundles of cash, stashing them into large pockets that had been sewn into the raincoat he was wearing. When those were full, he stuffed bundles into the outer pockets and into his trouser pockets.

Suddenly the electric globe that lit the vault went out. Panicked, the robber bolted from the vault, closing the spring-loaded gate as he fled and locking Perrin inside. The robber dropped $3,000 of bundled cash outside the gate in his haste to get out of the bank.

Less than five minutes had elapsed from the time the robber confronted Perrin and the time he escaped.

Perrin described the robber as about five and a half feet tall, wearing a dark gray suit and a hat pulled down over his eyes. His hands and face appeared to be sunburned. When Perrin finished telling authorities his story, he collapsed and was taken to Mercy Hospital.

Leo Perrin was 31 years old, married and the father of a 3-year-old son. He had been paying teller for about 7 years.

A check of the bank vault showed $21,400 missing; $5,000 in $20 bills and the rest in fives and tens, bills that would be hard to trace.

Bank President Ralph Van Vechten, who was interviewed at Chicago that day, said, 'The bank always carries large cash reserves and makes many shipments to rural banks. As I understand it, the paying teller had made his shipment on the early trains when he was held up. He was forced to surrender all the cash in his own box, but there was a much greater amount of cash in the bank, as our total deposits run about $7 million now. The bank will not lose anything, as the deposits are insured against robbery or holdups.'

An investigation began immediately involving the local police, members of the Burns Detective Agency, bank officials and Pinkerton detectives.