Cle Elum's Post-Christmas Hangover Robbery of 1917

The Blunt Hardware and Furniture Store in South Cle Elum in 1905

  Early on the morning of the day after Christmas in 1917, three men decided it was a perfect time to give themselves a belated holiday present.

The three broke into the Blunt Hardware and Furniture Store in South Cle Elum, which also happened to be the location of the local post office (store owner D.W. Blunt also served as the local postmaster). Once inside, they found the post office’s safe, wrestled it onto a hand sled, and dragged the iron box to some bushes located about 600 yards from the building.

   Then, like railroad or bank robbers out of an Old West dime novel, they attached stolen dynamite to the safe door and blew it wide open. They snatched up the contents before authorities—who certainly must have heard the explosion—could arrive, and immediately skipped town. The Spokane Chronicle newspaper later described the crime as “unique in its method.”

   So, began the story of South Cle Elum’s Not-so-Silent-Night robbers. Initial reports in state newspapers indicated that the trio made off with about $125 to $135 in cash (later said to have been more than $200) as well as stamps, blank money orders, and war certificates (an early form of U.S. Savings Bonds that were sold during World War I).

   But just two days after the crime, on December 28, two of the three safecrackers were in police custody. Apparently tipped off about the identities of the two men, Harold C. Blough, age 25, and John Johnson, age 19, authorities spotted the pair in Tacoma and brought them in for questioning.

   “Having 96 pennies on his person, the presence of which he cannot explain, on the morning after a post office robbery, is perhaps not enough evidence for a conviction, but it is sufficient grounds for binding over to the federal grand jury,” U.S. Commissioner E.B. Brockway said after a preliminary hearing, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.

The newspaper also described Johnson as “small and obviously frightened” when he heard Brockway’s words. It said the teenager visibly gasped while Bough “with the blasé wisdom of 25 years, gave only a cynical smile.”

   At the time of their arrest, Bough and Johnson only had the 96 pennies, along with some blank money order checks, in their possession. But of more importance was the fact that authorities found a black hat with traces of clay on it in their hotel room. The substance was, according to the News Tribune, “similar to that of the fire clay in the post office safe and on the shoes they were wearing at the time of arrest.”

   The two apprehended suspects, who were both from Cle Elum, were booked into the Tacoma jail with a bail of $3,000 each. A month later, on January 28, 1918, newspapers reported that both confessed shortly after being detained and, following a hearing, had been sentenced to two years at the McNeil’s Island federal prison.

   Meanwhile, the third suspect was still on the run. Bough and Johnson had identified their partner as Harry Lewis (real name, Harry Payne, who also used the alias Harry Davis), an escaped convict. Payne was simply identified in the newspapers as a black man, who was older than Bough and Johnson.

   In October 1915, Payne had been arrested for burglary in Franklin County and sentenced to 18 months to three years at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. On November 6, 1917, Payne had been instructed to ride on the back of a wagon from the prison grounds to the prison farm, where he was to dig up potatoes that day. Somewhere along the way, however, he disappeared.

   Six days later, at about 9 p.m., Payne was spotted on First Street in Pasco, where he was recognized as an escaped convict and promptly arrested by Pasco Chief of Police John E. Sullivan. As the two walked to the city jail, Payne wheeled around quickly and struck Sullivan in the face. The lawman was knocked down, with his head striking the cement pavement so hard that he blacked out. An eyewitness saw Payne running toward the rail yards after the assault.

   Fortunately for Sullivan, who was taken immediately to a local hospital, his injury wasn’t life-threatening. While he remained unconscious through the night, he recovered the next day and was able to return home a few days later. He would continue to serve as Pasco’s chief until 1922, then had a stint as chief of police in Yakima.

   As for Payne, he maintained a low profile until partnering with Bough and Johnson in Cle Elum in late December. It’s not known how the three met or knew each other prior to the post office robbery. What is known is that Payne had a talent for hiding, even after being identified by Bough and Johnson as having participated in the robbery.

   For the next month, Payne eluded law enforcement, who searched throughout Washington for the escaped con who had robbed a post office. Finally, on February 6, 1918, Payne made a mistake. He had traveled to Sacramento, California, apparently to see a young woman.

According to news accounts, she was a jealous type and, after he had somehow made her angry, contacted authorities because she knew he was an escaped convict and involved in the South Cle Elum post office robbery. Interestingly, some accounts claim that Payne was arrested after someone in Sacramento saw his image on a wanted poster as being a person of interest in a post office robbery,

   Regardless of how he was identified, Payne was quickly apprehended and placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s office. Later that month, he was returned to Walla Walla to await a hearing. Like his companions, Payne pleaded guilty to the robbery. On March 12, 1918, he appeared before a federal judge, who sentenced him to four years at McNeil’s Island.

   From there, the trio faded into obscurity. News accounts never specify if all the loot was recovered or if it all had been spent or disposed of by the time Payne was arrested. As for the South Cle Elum post office, it relocated in 1928 to a grocery store at 618 Madison Street, then moved, in 1942, to a frame structure at 604 Cleveland Street, where it remains today.

   The community of South Cle Elum, which is on the south bank of the Yakima River, opposite of Cle Elum, was established in 1908 after the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad (known as the Milwaukee Road) located its tracks on the south side of the river rather than adjacent to the already-existing town of Cle Elum. A small settlement soon cropped up that catered to the railroad, which designated it as a key division point and built a depot, roundhouse, and rail yard there.

   South Cle Elum incorporated in 1911 and for the next decades its fortunes rose and fell with the railroad’s activities. When the railroad finally shut down operations in the late 1970s, the town pivoted by capitalizing on its rich rail history and began the process of preserving and restoring many of the original railroad buildings including the depot. Additionally, the railroad’s former right-of-way became hiking, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, and biking trails that are now part of Iron Horse State Park.