Note: Bluffton sixth graders in the 1953-54 school year (graduating class of 1960) created a booklet titled "The Bluffton Story." The following article is part of that booklet, which is now in the history collection at the Bluffton Public Library. This series continues each week on the Icon.
"The Great Bank Robbery"
By Karen Gerber and Kathy Basinger
Bluffton has been visited by some famous people in its time, but the visit of John Dillinger will never be forgotten.

On Monday, August 14, 1933 Bluffton was slightly on the sleepy side just at 11:55 a.m. when two well dressed men about 30 years old entered the bank.

At the first window Mr. Elmer Romey, the cashier of the bank (now the president) was waiting on Mr. Charles Burkholder, an employee of The Farmers Grain Co., the only customer in the bank at the time.

One of the men that were strangers to the bankers walked to the window where Mr. Roscoe Klinger was teller to ask for change for a $5.00 bill. The other one leaned on the glass counter that is in the center of the floor in front of the second window. A third stranger in the mean time had slipped just inside the door.

Mr. Klinger started to count out the change and the ma shoved a gun into his face and said "Stand back - this is a hold up."

Mr. Burkholder had just finished his transactions and was preparing to leave the window when one of the highwaymen grabbed him and shoved him ahead behind the counter. The bandits gathered up all the money in sight and were preparing to enter the big vault when the alarm sounded. One of them said, "They're after us - let's go."

Mr. Dillinger leaped over the counter in his flight. Thirty shots were fired on Main Street as they fled town with the $2,100 they had taken.